Hanami

I spent the past five days hopping around cities for hanami (cherry blossom viewing). Cherry blossoms are the national flower in Japan and their one-week long blooming directly coincided with the beginning of the new school year, the new fiscal business year, and perfect warm weather in my area. Unfortunately, today has been extremely windy and rainy and so I think it's safe to say that the blossoms will soon be scattered all over the ground and will apparently look like a beautiful pink and white carpet. It sounds to me like another great excuse for picnics and celebrations.




Learning tea ceremony under the cherry blossoms

Night party at Kawanoe Castle





Matsuyama festivals

The emphasis at these parties is definitely on the beer and sake

For a friend's birthday, a big group of us went out for an amazing French dinner after a day of rugby practice, going to the onsen, and many more hours of gathering under the trees.


Kawanoe festivals including some intense sumo wrestling and more tea ceremonies






Last weekend, I went with two friends to the next prefecture over for a day of museums. We saw a huge range of Japanese and Western style art and found lots of tasty little shops and restaurants. At one point, amidst a European photography exhibit, my friends thought a huge wall-size photo of a cow-pasture with hundreds of cows was very entertaining since cattle are rarely seen around here and the few dairy cows that do exist seem to be tucked away inside barns. After a little struggling with the Japanese phonetic alphabet, I realized that the picture was taken in non-other-than Greeley, Colorado. I explained that it is those very cows that we smell as the winds shift right before it snows...ahhhh, home.

a cool reflection