Cherry Blossoms, originally uploaded by Ayala Moriel.

Spring has officially begun this morning, and I'm glad to see that the cherry blossoms are cooperating with the calendar and start creating the beautiful atmosphere that makes this season special, regardless of how cold it may be.

I am busy these days getting interesting print materials for the exhibit at Blunda that will showcase the perfume I created last year for Perfume Inside a Poem project on Memory & Desire blog. I'm putting together a few things with my graphic designer - including a postcard with one of my cherry blossom photographs of last year. The rest of it you will just have to visit Blunda to see for yourself!

From olfactory point of view, the perfume I created for this project is about the contrast between the botanical and the urbane. The images that flicked before my eyes as I was reading the poem were the dusty Metro in Montreal and the humidity of New York City, and in contrast to that – the surprise of discovering the cherry boulevard in full bloom at Burrard SkyTrain station in Vancouver. And because of its stunning beauty at this time of the year it was also chosend to be the centre of the Cherry Blossom Festival in Vancouver.

After much thought, I've decided to call the perfume Hanami. Not so much because it is particularly Japanese, but because Hanami (flower viewing) is totally not what Westerners might expect. It's not about Geisha roaming around in bamboo flip flops and writing haiku about cherry blossoms and playing on koto as the blossoms dust their coiffed hair. Hanami is really more like a picnic where people sit under the cherry blossom trees and drink so much sake they can’t remember a thing. I have to admit that I liked how the name sounds all pretty and romantic but in reality isn’t so. Plus I like the sound of it, and it will be my first perfume starting with the letter “H”.