Spring is in the Air

Well it seems that spring might finally be here, even though we're going to skip into rainy season and summer sooner than it took for spring to finally get here. It's been a bit chilly here recently and raining incessantly, which makes it seems like we did skip spring! But every once in while we'll have a pleasant spring day and I've tried to take advantage of them when they present themselves. Tulips are opening everywhere - we have a bunch in front of our school that I enjoy on my way in and out of school each day. I took a picture of these tulips in someone's garden on a walk the other day.

Sunday was one of the days that I decided I needed to take advantage of the weather. As my car had been smashed in the day before, I decided to walk to Sengan Shrine to enjoy the last of the cherry blossoms. Dawna reminded me to take advantage of the important things -- that I won't have any more "last chances" to see the cherry blossoms while living in Japan. I'm glad I took her advice and got out, even it it is a quite a walk there and back!

There aren't a whole lot of places around Fujinomiya where you can do cherry blossom viewing, so the few places are usually full of people. I just went by myself for some chill time, time to forget about my car and just relax. I sat under a big tree full of blossoms and read on my Kindle. Gosh I love my Kindle. I'm reading another James Patterson - I don't seem to read much else these days. I probably should be reading some stuff with a bit more literary value, but I enjoy James Patterson as I do TV shows like CSI and Law and Order SVU. Kinda the same sort of entertainment :)

I asked some students if they got to go out and do some cherry blossom viewing over spring break, but it seems that they were too busy studying, or maybe they just don't care either. But the pic below is some proof that they probably did spend a lot of time studying. That's a stack of Spring Break English homework -- each kid had to finish that book over break...I'm assuming they had one for each subject. I'd also like to remind you that in Japan, Spring Break is the break between school years, so these kids had finished up their school year and were moving on to the next grade only to be hazed with stacks and stacks of homework. I can only imagine if American teachers tried to give their students work to do in the summer!!

These carp streamers have started appearing as well to celebrate Children's Day in Japan. Though it's call children's day, it's mostly celebrates boys. People hang carp streamers outside their homes -- each one represents a boy in the house, the bigger ones for the oldest and on down in size. It's not until May 5, but some streamers are out already. This one was taken at a house near where I live in Fujinomiya.

I hope that we have some more nice and sunny days before rainy season and summer roll around. I have to cherish my last days with a view of Mt. Fuji, as it's usually too cloudy in summer and obviously in rainy season to see the mountain. I'm sure gonna miss it!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It's the most wonderful time of the year: cherry blossom season! I've been a busy girl and though I've seen them around, I didn't get to fully enjoy the blossoms until Saturday. Last minute, we threw together a hanami part, or blossom viewing picnic under the blossoms. I absolutely loved this last year and looked forward to it all winter. It's going to pass all too quickly, but I hope to get out one more time this weekend.

Frankly, there's not a lot to tell. A bunch of us ALTs got together, had a little picnic, and enjoyed each other's company on a beautiful, sunny day under the blossoms. My friend Nicole made tons of amazing sweets - Ghiradelli chocolate chip cookies, several varieties of brownies, peanut butter cookies and more.

It was just the respite I needed before heading out on another 40 kilometer practice hike for the Oxfam Trailwalker on Sunday.

Not so healthy picnicking...

Our initial group of teachers, a few more came later.

I'll probably post an album of pictures on flickr, but you should really check out my amazing friend Kelly's pictures from the day. She took some amazing shots of the people and the blossoms! I even made her album cover! I even climbed up into a cherry blossom tree and got a cool pic, so be sure not to miss it!

Random Weekend of Fun

Happy Valentine's Day! I am not celebrating, but hope that all you couples out there had a romantic evening with your partners!

This Saturday, I went down to visit my friend Kari in Izunagaoka. Our friend Josh was there as well, and we set out to have the most random adventures we could. Well, our main goal was to see the early cherry blossoms in Kawazu as I said in my last post, but when I arrived, Josh and Kari proposed a plan to visit a boar amusement park. I reluctantly agreed, but the weekend conversation pretty much revolved around the boars from there on out.

We went out on Saturday night to one of my favorite pork cutlet restaurants that is one of Kari's regular eating establishments. I got my usual katsudon and Josh ended up drawing the attention of an older drunk Japanese man who chatted with our table for well over an hour!! The conversation was quite random and hilarious. At one point he told Josh to be a rabbit and eat his cabbage so he could be a strong sportsman, funny since Josh really only plays video game sports...and then the conversation digressed as the man at one point told us that his farts smell like lemon. Josh asked him about the boar amusement park, and we found out our hopes and dreams for the following day were crushed. It closed about 3 years ago, but they are still handing out brochures because Kari had gotten one about a year ago. We were hoping the man was so drunk that he didn't know, but unfortunately after an internet search, that wasn't the case.

The night was filled with randomness, including a free pen from the owners of the restaurant, free chocolates for Valentine's Day from the owner's of a really cool bar in Ohito with the walls and ceiling covered in album covers (and the bathroom covered in all women album covers....), and we capped off the evening watching some movie from Kari's childhood that she told us frightened her as a child, but was her brother's favorite video, so she was forced to watch it all the time...it was indeed frightening, even more as an adult!!

This morning we slept in a bit and then headed further down the Izu peninsula to Kawazu. The cherry blossoms line the river and you can walk up and down the path. There are many vendors selling food and souvenirs. This first picture looks quite unimpressive, but I wanted to give you an idea of the bigger picture down the river.

Here's a close up of some of the flowers. These cherry blossoms are much pinker than the regular ones that bloom later in late March and early April.


Kari and I enjoyed some sweet potato fries from one of the vendors. It was a nice relaxing walk that indeed made me see the light at the end of the winter tunnel. Even though we're wearing winter coats and hats, the weather is starting to warm up little by little and the blossoms definitely give the feel of spring!! Unfortunately we did see quite a bit of snow up in the mountains on the drive there though!

Also, one of the vendors that we bought dried fruit from was selling some boar!! After narrowly missing out on the amusement park where they had trained boars to jump through hoops and had boar races, we had to at least eat some boar to make the weekend complete. Josh and I split a boar kabob for about $1.50 each. It was pretty tasty, but pretty much just tasted like beef.

After the cherry blossoms, we made a short detour to Toi, another town on the west coast of the Izu peninsula. It boasts the world's largest flower clock at over 30 meters diameter. As the boar extravaganza was a no go, we had to settle for the clock. It turns out, we drove there pretty much for nothing as the clock is huge, but it isn't made of flowers anymore! There was a plaque about it's Guinness Book of World Records standing in 1991, but apparently they stopped making it out of flowers! It was all tile, and around it were a few barely still live flowers. They did however have a nice footpath around the clock that had some foot reflexology rock massage stuff.

Here I am testing out a few of the rocks:

And here I am in front of the clock. Note the crappy flowers around it.

Across the street from the clock was a foot bath. The Izu is known for it's natural hot springs, so there are many spas and many foot baths around. This one was nice after a walk around the clock with the rocks.

Like I said, Happy Valentine's Day! I am off to get some sleep. This week is full of interview tests and essay grading. It's the end of the school year here, so the students are finishing up all their classes and getting ready for graduation in March!