Every year in Japan the gradual arrival of the cherry blossom - the sakura - is celebrated with the kind of media attention usually reserved for the arrival of a new series of Endurance, a member of the Royal Family, or Playstation 2. As the blossom colours Japan pink from one coast to the other, people in the freshly tinted towns sit under the trees and drink copious amounts of sake and feel their work worries evaporate. It was under such circumstances that Will Ferguson made a bet that he could hitchhike across the country, following the sakura's journey from the southern tip of Japan to Hokkaido, its most northerly point. Never has this been done before - not in 2,000 years of Japanese recorded history. The resulting travelogue is one of the funniest and most illuminating book ever written about Japan; and proves - in true Zen paradox style - that 'To travel is better than to arrive '.