Cherry blossom lingo: upside-down cherry blossom trees

The other day I wrote about how rain is a great opportunity to see cherry blossoms at night. One of the reasons is because cherry blossoms have a better reflection in water when (or after) its raining. So if you go to see a 'sakura namiki' (a row of cherry blossoms) by water you can see what is called upside-down cherry blossoms.

Upside-down cherry blossoms

Upside-down cherry blossoms is the expression for when cherry blossoms are reflected in water, making them look inverted, as per the photo above. In the above they are reflected in a puddle. Other bodies of water work well too, such as rivers, ponds and fountains. You can see reflections in those water features at anytime, but obviously puddles are only available after rain! In this photo you can also see "hana-no-ukihashi" and "hanaikada".

Some people do say inverted cherry blossoms, rather than upside-down cherry blossoms. But in Japanese there is one word, or rather a compound of two! It is "sakasazakura" / "sakasa zakura" 逆さ桜. Sakasa 逆さ means upside-down or reverse and zakura, from sakura, 桜 means cherry blossom. The 'z' in zakura is used in place of 's' when sakura comes after another word.

Have you seen any upside-down cherry blossoms this year?