It wasn't the intoxicating smell of the flowers -- it was acute alcohol intoxication that sent 104 Japanese to the hospital during cherry blossom viewing parties (hanami).
Some sake and song under the canopies of cherry blossoms while delicate pink flowers flutter down upon you and your friends during those two fleeting weeks is a dreamy indulgence.
Ending up in the hospital is a little less marvelous. Of the 104 hospitalized in metro Tokyo, forty were 20 somethings, while fifteen were in their 70's. While wisdom is supposed to come with age, given that there were probably far more partiers in their 20's than in their 40's making the elders proportionately much greater, when it comes to drinking, it looks like age doesn't help.
Acute alcohol poisoning can lead to a coma and death as it depresses the central nervous system. But the thousands of people who became inebriate and didn't go to the hospital, probably showed some of the typical signs of intoxication: impairment of judgment, erratic behavior, and vomiting.
So I guess this explains why in the survey posted in our last blog, which asked "What things at cherry blossom viewing annoy you?" number 4 was "A drunk came around causing trouble."
