Some people celebrate the cherry-blossom season in doggedly internationalist mode: Aoyama cemetery or the Tamagawa embankment; a few bottles of bubbly with cheese and crackers; maybe even some beluga roe if they're feeling flush. Others prefer to stagger down the well-worn path of traditionalism: Ueno Park; seething masses of humanity; isshobin magnums of coarse nihonshu; cold yakitori and ebi-sen crackers; karaoke and oblivion.

As for us, we seek out more modest hanami celebrations that are in tune with the way Tokyo operates on the cusp of the millennium. That is why you are most likely to find us down by the cherry tree-lined banks of the Meguro-gawa -- the gentrified stretch between Ikejiri Ohashi and Komazawa-dori. The proceedings here have nothing to do with compulsory mass revelry (there are no swathes of park on which to set out mats and karaoke machines), just enjoyment of the season on a far more human, local scale.

You quietly stroll, pausing perhaps to open a bottle or two, and admire the long tunnel of blooms. And then, when fully satiated on the heady admixture of blossoms and aperitifs, you can retire to one of the eateries that abut the river. Surely at this time, above all others, what is called for is food and drink that elevates rather than dulls the senses.