Tips Trips & Trails – Selena Oh

APRIL IS A BEAUTIFUL, INSPIRING MONTH, WRITES SELENA OH, WHEN FLOWERS, BLOSSOMS AND LOVE ABOUND.

APRIL LOVE

April love is for the very young

Every star’s a wishing star that shines for you April love is all the seven wonders

One little kiss can tell you this is true

Sometimes an April day will suddenly bring showers Rain to grow the flowers for her first bouquet

But April love can slip right through your fingers

So if she’s the one don’t let her run away

……Paul Francis Webster and Sammy Fain

What is it about the month of April that inspires more than 30 song and movie titles?

Commonly associated with Easter and Spring, April evokes pleasant images of green meadows, frolicking lambs, passing showers and gorgeous blossoms. Kinder temperatures allow us to shrug off thick, drabby garments in favour of light, colourful ones. There’s a fresh crisp nip in the air. In the Southern Hemisphere, nature flushes with hues of copper and bronze, and nights become cooler. April is also a fashionable name for the fairer sex.

SAKURA TIME

In Japan, it’s sakura time as the beloved sakura or cherry blossoms go into full bloom in April attracting hordes of tourists. Nothing takes one’s breath away than the sight of the pink flowers blooming over a packed bento lunch outdoors. The thrill of chasing sakura starts in March in the south in Nagasaki culminating in the north in Hokkaido in April. Sakura has given rise to a lucrative industry spanning chocolates, candy, cosmetics, toys and fashionwear. Elsewhere, it’s tulips in Holland, lavender and sunflowers in France, poppies in Tuscany, edelweiss in Switzerland and peonies in China.

FESTIVALS

Over in South Australia, I have fond memories of the Barossa Vintage Festival in April held in the Barossa, one of Australia’s oldest wine regions with a strong Germanic legacy. It’s good times with astounding food, wine, culture and heritage. The notorious and sometimes loveable Scarecrows from the Scarecrow Parade still haunt me to this day.

As this issue covers May, it will be very remiss of me not to highlight the highly celebrated Vivid Sydney event that starts 24 May and goes to 15 June. Its 23 nights of mind blowing programmes lauding light, music and ideas splashed across the city’s iconic attractions wrap up a perfect finish to a brilliant Autumn and mark the dazzling start to Winter Down Under!