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 Latest and Greatest of Mt. Fuji

Recently, it was pretty rainy for about two weeks. Finally, the clouds broke and Mt. Fuji came out to play! I'm coming upon some of my last days of seeing Mt. Fuji with frequency, as along with summer comes clouds, rain and rainy season. This weekend I had some friends visit from Aichi-ken. They had made multiple attempts to visit the area around Mt. Fuji, but were never successful. Finally this weekend they were able to see Mt. Fuji for the first time after being here for 2 years! This inspired me to post some pictures from the weekend. I'm gonna miss this mountain so much when I leave! Hope you enjoy the views!

From the third floor of my school, Fujinomiya West High School

From the cafe at Lake Tanuki, with a latte and a Mt. Fuji specialty cookie.

Fujinishiki Sake Festival near Shibakawa

The ladies from Aichi enjoying their first views of Mt. Fuji

Such Grandeur

Rice Paddy Jumping

Rape Flower Blossoms

Photo Opportunity

I love the nature around Fujinomiya!

I hope you enjoyed this collection as much as I enjoy the real thing! It was a great weekend - maybe I'll post more later. Mt. Fuji is back to hiding again today, unfortunately.

Winter Strikes Back

Well, I guess I'm not quite rid of winter as I had hoped!! I am out of my winter slump at least and feeling more motivated these past few days, so hopefully that will hold into the next month!! I woke up this morning to snow! As most of you know, it doesn't really snow here in Fujinomiya. Last year it only snowed one time and lasted about as long as it did today! I think the most that snow was on top of my car, about 4 inches, but the snow wasn't sticking to the ground all that much. It melted really fast, before noon! But while it lasted, it was pretty on all the roof tops and tree branches. It's always nice to get just a bit of snow to make me feel at home, though I am really glad I wasn't living at home this winter! I'm good with 4 inches and one day all winter, not a record 28 snow days and counting like in Minnesota! Sorry guys! Below are a few pictures of the snow. First is from my bedroom window and the second on my drive to school near a bus stop. That's actually a field right there where there are usually veggies growing.




Though it's been hovering around freezing for about a week, people think that it's still not cold in comparison to home. Japan has poor insulation as they think that summer is too hot and they want air to be freely moving for that reason. That's the explanation I have gotten from a few people anyway. Most people have a wall air conditioner in their apartments that doubles as a heater in winter. I have no such luck and decided not to invest in that since I bought a car. Instead I use a kerosene heater. It seems like an old way of heating an apartment, but a lot of people use them here as space heaters. I can comfortably warm up 1-2 rooms with it. I usually use it in the living room and kitchen in the evening, or just the living room after dinner. It's efficient and cheaper than electric heaters. I have a really old electric heater I use in my bedroom at night, but it barely takes the edge off the cold, it doesn't actually heat the room. Same with a halogen heater that I have. As you can see it's a much newer version of the kerosene heater than you would have seen in old times. It has a timer on top so you can make it kick on in the morning or at a certain time, a thermometer, child lock, etc. It's really quite safe except for the carbon monoxide. I have to be sure to let in a bit of fresh air from outside every once in awhile.

As I said, I've been working on being more motivated this week, and that includes cooking at home and not going out to eat all the time. Last night I mixed up a common winter dinner in Japan called nabe. Often people cook it in a special pot and a portable burner in the middle of the table, but I don't have a nabe pot so I just made it on the stove in a big pan instead. I made a kimchee nabe, my favorite. I cut up some tofu, fresh mushrooms, cabbage, a few other leafy green leek type vegetables and added some beef. You just turn it on, let it boil and steam for awhile and then eat it in small bowls with chopsticks (you can just drink the actual soup part). Sometimes we add udon noodles, but I forgot to buy them, so I just had veggies and meat. So delicious and healthy with all those veggies!

That's about all for now, nothing too exciting going on this week! Hope some of your snow melts like ours did!

Around the 'nomiya

We spent a few days just around where I live, and of course one of them was spent at Shiraito Waterfalls and Lake Tanuki, the sorta "must-sees" of my city. First we headed off to the waterfalls. On the path down to the falls there is a bunch of bamboo, so we decided to go senior picture style (as we did at many places throughout the week!):






















































At the waterfalls, we decided to buy the cell phone charms of some Mt. Fuji characters. They kiss each other and we wanted to make sure they had enough "alone time" before they parted ways again and resided in different countries:


After Shiraito Waterfalls, we headed up to Lake Tanuki for a little picnic, followed by a walk around the lake:

And a few more senior pictures:

Mt. Fuji didn't come out to play, but it was a fabulous day despite it!