The Tobiume or "flying plum tree" standing to the right of the main hall of Dazaifu Tenmangu (太宰府天満宮) in Dazaifu City in Fukuoka Prefecture is the most historically charged single plant in any shrine in Japan, said in legend to have flown overnight from Kyoto to Dazaifu to be with the exiled scholar Sugawara no Michizane after his 901 banishment, and it is traditionally the first plum tree in the country to bloom each year. Around 6,000 plum trees of around 200 varieties fill the rest of the shrine grounds and bloom from late January to early March, drawn from the Tenjin scholar god's lifelong devotion to plum blossoms reflected in the shrine's plum blossom emblem. Dazaifu Tenmangu is the head shrine of the around 12,000 Tenmangu shrines across Japan and is built on Michizane's grave site, with the current Momoyama style main hall dating to 1591 and currently under its first major renovation in 124 years, with a temporary main hall designed by Sou Fujimoto with real trees growing on its roof standing in front of it through to around 2026. The 400 metre Sando approach from Dazaifu Station is lined with shops selling umegae mochi, the local plum branch rice cake. From Nishitetsu-Fukuoka Tenjin Station the Nishitetsu Line runs to Dazaifu Station in around 25 minutes with a transfer at Futsukaichi, with a 5 minute walk from the station to the shrine entrance.

A 4 kilometre kawakudari boat ride along the canals of Yanagawa (柳川) in southern Fukuoka Prefecture takes around 60 to 70 minutes in a flat bottomed wooden donko-bune navigated by a boatman with a single long pole, with the boatman singing local folk songs as the boat winds through the canals beneath cherry trees in bloom along parts of the route in late March and early April, and the surrounding willows reaching down to the water. Yanagawa is a historic castle town that the Tachibana clan ruled from 1620 to 1871, with the network of around 470 kilometres of canals originally built for irrigation, flood control and fire prevention and now the defining feature of the town. The standard adult boat fare is around ¥1,500 to ¥1,700 one way, with several operators running from docks within a 5 minute walk of Nishitetsu-Yanagawa Station. The Yanagawa Hina Matsuri Sagemon Meguri runs from mid February to April 3 with colourful hanging hina doll decorations displayed throughout the town and an Ohina-sama Water Parade in mid March down the canals. Ohana, the former Tachibana residence at the end of the standard boat route, houses the Shoto-en garden modelled after Matsushima Bay alongside the white Seiyokan Western style hall and a samurai era museum. From Nishitetsu Fukuoka Tenjin Station the Nishitetsu Tenjin-Omuta Limited Express runs to Nishitetsu-Yanagawa Station in around 45 minutes at ¥870.

Kumamoto Castle (熊本城) is one of Japan's three premier castles alongside Himeji in Hyogo and Matsumoto in Nagano, completed in 1607 by the warlord Kato Kiyomasa, renowned as a castle architect, who had begun work at Chausuyama around 1599. Its distinctive 武者返し (musha-gaeshi) or "warrior repelling" stone walls curve outward from their base at a gentle angle before turning nearly vertical at the top, which makes them close to impossible to scale, and the castle in Kumamoto City has become the symbol of Kyushu's recovery from the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes. Kumamoto City's recovery plan records damage across 517 faces of stone wall, around 29.9 per cent of the total wall area, with 50 separate collapse sites, along with damage to all 13 of the castle's Important Cultural Property buildings and 20 reconstructed structures. The main keep was restored and reopened in 2021, but full restoration of the wider complex is projected to continue until 2052, with a 350 metre elevated Reconstruction Viewing Corridor opened in 2020 that takes visitors above the damaged stone walls at eye level with the active restoration work below. Cherry trees of around eleven varieties fill the castle grounds and bloom in late March and early April, with the Miyukizaka slope on the south side and the cherry tree tunnel along the path from Ninomaru Plaza on the west side to Nishi-otemon Gate the standout viewing spots. The annual Kumamoto Castle Spring Festival runs through the bloom period with Japanese taiko drumming, samurai costume performances, food stalls and special tours observing the restoration progress. The blossom lighting is a short run in the second half of March and the opening days of April rather than a month long season. The castle's spring evening opening held the paid area open until 20:00 from 22 March to 6 April in 2025, closed the Miyukizaka carriageway to traffic for pedestrians from 17:30 to 21:00, and lit the cherry trees there and along the Nishi-otemon approach between Ninomaru Plaza and Kato Shrine, which stayed open to 21:00. A separately sponsored cherry illumination ran along the Nagabei-mae cherry avenue from 18:00 to 22:00 on the ten evenings from 20 to 29 March 2026 and was free to walk. Castle admission is ¥800. A magnitude 7.1 earthquake with a maximum seismic intensity of 7 struck Kumamoto on 28 July 2026, and the castle reopened on 13 August 2026 with the paid area running normally, although the Wakuwaku-za museum was still closed and several castle events had been cancelled as of 18 August 2026, so check the castle's official site before fixing a 2027 spring date. From Hakata Station the Kyushu Shinkansen runs to Kumamoto Station in around 32 minutes at fastest, with the city tram from there to the Kumamoto-jo Mae stop. Going on a weekday evening avoids the weekend crowds while the castle and the blossom are both lit.

Shuri Castle (首里城) in the Shuri district of Naha was the royal palace and administrative centre of the Ryukyu Kingdom for 450 years from 1429 to 1879, with the vermilion architecture combining Chinese palatial design and Japanese castle defensive structure to reflect the kingdom's role as a maritime trading bridge between China, Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia. The site has been destroyed five times in its history, most recently in the October 2019 fire that consumed the Seiden main hall and seven adjacent structures rebuilt in 1992, with reconstruction of the Seiden scheduled to be completed in autumn 2026 under the "Visible Reconstruction" theme that has opened the rebuilding work to public viewing throughout the final stages. The Shureimon Gate at the entrance, originally built by King Shō Sei in the early 16th century and featured on Japan's commemorative ¥2,000 note, survived the 2019 fire and remains the most photographed landmark in Okinawa, with the wider site registered as part of the UNESCO World Heritage "Gusuku Sites and Related Properties of the Kingdom of Ryukyu" since 2000 though only the stone walls and the foundations from before 1945 carry the UNESCO designation since the buildings are all postwar reconstructions. Spring in Okinawa is mild and subtropical from late March, giving comfortable conditions for the walks between gates and across the grounds. Admission to the paid area is ¥400, and from Naha Airport the Yui Rail monorail runs to Shuri Station in around 30 minutes with a 15 to 20 minute walk to the entrance.

古宇利島 (Kouri Island) is a small, round island of about 8 km around off the northern coast of the Motobu Peninsula in Nakijin, northern Okinawa. Since 8 February 2005 it has been joined to Yagaji Island, and so to the main island, by the 古宇利大橋 (Kouri Bridge), 1,960 metres long and free to cross, whose low span over pale turquoise shallows is one of the classic drives of Okinawa. Beside the island end of the bridge lies 古宇利ビーチ (Kouri Beach), a stretch of white sand with clear, calm water where the swimming season runs from about late April to late October, though facilities are simple and there is generally no lifeguard. Islanders call Kouri an island of love, because in an old creation story, often compared with Adam and Eve, a young man and woman came down from heaven and lived here on rice cakes that fell from the sky, until they began to store them, the cakes stopped, and they learned to work the land and became the ancestors of the Ryukyuan people. On the north coast, ティーヌ浜 (Tinu Beach) has two rocks that look like hearts from the right angle, and a road of about 8 km circles the island past fields of sugar cane and small viewpoints. 古宇利オーシャンタワー (Kouri Ocean Tower) offers a view 82 metres above the sea and a shell museum, for ¥1,000 for adults, from 10:00 to 18:00. Late spring, from April into early May, is a good time to come, with the beach season starting and the rainy season, which usually begins around 10 May, not yet arrived. The island is about 1 hour 30 minutes to 2 hours by car from Naha by the Okinawa Expressway to Kyoda, and is easily combined with Nakijin Castle and the Churaumi Aquarium on the Motobu Peninsula.

あまおう (Amaou) is grown only in Fukuoka, across seventeen local JA cooperatives, and the name is built from the first letters of 甘い, 丸い, 大きい and 美味い. The season opens in November and runs to April or May, so spring is the tail of it rather than the peak, and the fruit is easier to find and cheaper by then. Fukuoka Prefecture reports that 博多あまおう has held the highest sales unit price of any strawberry in Japan for eighteen years running. The variety's formal name is 福岡S6号. Through the spring it turns up in everything from parfaits to daifuku across the prefecture, and the pick your own farms around Kurume and Yame stay open into April.

トビウオ (Tobiuo) is called トッピー (toppi) in Kagoshima, and the prefecture takes over seventy per cent of the national catch, most of it landed around 種子島 (Tanegashima) and 屋久島 (Yakushima). The season runs from March to May. The fish glides above the surface for a hundred metres or more on its outsized pectoral fins to escape whatever is chasing it, and the flesh has the texture that this suggests. It is firm, lean and springy rather than soft. It is eaten as sashimi when it is fresh enough, which on the islands it is, and otherwise as 一夜干し (ichiya boshi), salted and dried overnight then grilled, or ground into surimi for 揚げ天. The high speed ferries from Kagoshima to the islands are named after it, which is a fair indication of how closely the fish and the place are tied together.

新玉ねぎ (Shin Tamanegi) are the early crop lifted between February and June and sold without the drying and storage that ordinary onions get, which leaves them soft, high in water and sweet enough to eat uncooked. Saga is the second largest onion producer in Japan after Hokkaido, and Shiroishi Town alone accounts for close to 70 percent of the prefecture's crop. The early varieties grown there include スイートハート and 春一番. Sliced thin and dressed with bonito flakes and soy they are a dish in their own right rather than a base ingredient, and roadside stands across the Shiroishi plain sell them by the net through the spring.

島らっきょう (Shima Rakkyo) are harvested from January to May and reach the market through the spring and into early summer. They are grown across the north of the main island, in Miyakojima and the surrounding islands, and on 伊江島 (Ie Island), the area most associated with them, across roughly 76 to 84 hectares producing between 655 and 720 tonnes a year. They are far smaller and much sharper than mainland rakkyo, and the standard treatments are a light salt pickle eaten with the green tops still attached, or battered whole and fried as tempura. Every izakaya in Naha has them on the first page of the menu through the spring.

もずく (Mozuku) is harvested between March and June by suction pump from nets seeded the previous autumn in the shallow water inside the reef. Okinawa produces around 90 per cent of Japan's mozuku, and Uruma City alone accounts for roughly 40 per cent of the prefecture's share. Farmed mozuku was first harvested successfully in 1977 by a research group at the 恩納村漁協 fishing cooperative. It is slippery and fine stranded and is most often served cold in a vinegar dressing as もずく酢, but it is also fried into fritters as もずく天ぷら and cooked through soup. Spring is when it turns up fresh rather than packaged.