I needed to blog suddenly

 Hello everyone, long time no blog! 

It might be the sight of beautiful ikebana and the lady who suddenly handed me flowers, or the scent of kinmokusei in the air reminding me of my study abroad blogging times, but I have such a need to write right now. I haven't vlogged for Youtube in a while, or if I had, I never went back and edited/posted because I've been so busy, and it's just not the main focus of my free time right now. 

I've realized a lot of my hobbies revolve around capturing memories (vlog, blog, photog). I think it's because I easily forget, or can't remember little details. But I feel really happy when something reminds me. I don't ever go back and watch my videos on Youtube. I don't even check out my friend's YouTubes, even though I should. But, I do go back and reread this blog occasionally, and I ALWAYS love to read my best friend's blog (here if you're curious)

Anyway, what brought this blogging need on was a festival. Festivals are one of my most favorite culture things in Japan. A lot of really fun memories I made were at Japanese festivals. My favorite one that I'd been going to every year was the Asagaya Tanabata Matsuri that always fell on my birthday in August. It's been cancelled every year since covid. This year, they were planning to have it, but a covid spike jumped up and ended that dream. 

Festival Day 1

Me and my husband moved about a year and some months ago to the place we're living now, and it's near a huge shrine, which tends to mean they probably must have at least one festival at some point. We went there for New Year, and they had food stalls and stuff. Then the tell-tale festival lanterns popped up along the street! Friday my husband messaged me and told me the festival was happening!

I was working a bit late that day. I decided to walk home from my station, and noticed a lot of people biking, and groups of high school boys laughing and heading the opposite direction. My husband called me and we briefly met as he was heading out to meet his previous coworkers. He mentioned that the festival was going on and LOTS of people were there. I continued home, thinking it was too late to catch the festival because it was already 8:30ish, but when I passed by the shrine, it was still crowded with people! I quickly went home to grab my camera. I knew I wouldn't have fun going alone, but I was slightly hopeful I'd meet someone cool or someone I knew, or something good would happen. I got some nice pictures.

Alas, I met no-one. I felt lonely. It's extra lonely going to a festival alone and seeing all the people having fun like through an invisible barrier. But, I had that stupid little hope pushing me to go. This is the 3rd time this year I ended up at a festival alone. Maybe one of my students was here. A friend. A random old man who lived in America and wants to talk to a foreigner in English. A girl who thinks my clothes are cute. Anything! A local connection. 

Day 1, I was not so lucky. But, I got some really cool pictures I guess.

Festival Day 2

My husband was meeting another previous coworker. I have my craziest and longest day of work on Saturdays because that's how eikawa works. I walked home again from my station and saw lots of people heading home. I got to the Lawson convenient store that's 4 minutes from my house and there were SO MANY BIKES parked there. I was planning to cross the street and just head home, but I couldn't with that much excitement nearby. 

I wandered toward the festival yet again. I didn't feel as lonely as last time, then I suddenly felt like I wanted to cry, then I decided to go further into the shrine than I did Friday. I heard drums. Japanese taiko drums I guess? Something about them just captivates and moves me. The first time I realized and felt this way was the Washington DC Cherry Blossom Festival the one time I went. Anyway, I followed the sound until I was at a Japanese style theatre (that I learned the name of at some point during my theatre and/or Japanese studies but forgot) and I watched. I was captivated. This person had a mask and a really long white wig on and was just walking around shaking some bells to the drumming and flute thingy, but I couldn't look away. I wanted to run home and grab my camera but I couldn't leave. I did get some video.

Then it was over. But I went deeper into the shrine and saw that they had ikebana displays (Japanese flower arranging). I took a class on in it Nagoya when I studied at Kinjo, so I wanted to have a look. There was a lady taking them down, she said that this was the last day and handed them to the person she was talking to. Then she wrapped up some more, turned around, and handed them to me! 

I was feeling low, coming to this festival again, alone, watching and listening to everyone else's fun. But the show and the flowers brightened up my mood and my urge to write this blog. 

I went to Hitachi Seaside Park, Hoshiimo Sweet Potato Shrine, and Saw Black Swans in Ibaraki Japan this Golden Week...2 Truths and a Lie

May 2022 

One of the 3 things in this title were meant to happen, and the other 2 were accidental little gems we found instead of what we had planned.

So you know the famous park in Ibaraki Japan with the Baby Blue Eye flower fields and the ocean? 

Hitachi Seaside Park. This one.

(Image from google and link here)

Well, I finally had a day where me and husband were both off and we could borrow his parents car. We left the house at 9:30, picked up the car and hit the road.

And then, we hit the worst traffic jam I can remember ever being in in my LIFE. It was the first official day of Golden Week, which meant the day everyone leaves to travel. We learned a lesson that day. LEAVE at like 6am if you must travel the first day of Golden Week out of Tokyo by car. Anyway, I had my camera and music and each other, and a whole day ahead of us, so we made the best of it.

What Sonic the Hedgehog level is this??

Sooooo many rice fields

So after 8 hours (!!!!!!!!!!) (supposed to be about a 3 hour drive...) We finally made it!!!!

...just kidding. This is just a small patch of nemophilia in a parking lot about 5 minutes away from the park because WE DIDN'T MAKE IT IN TIME. That's right, we left at 9:30 am and we arrived at the line for the parking lot an hour before their 5 o'clock 

 closing time, and we made it to the ticket area by 4:50. So no flowers for us this year

.........

Plan B: (which we were considering might happen as we slowly were realizing we might not actually make it by the 5 o'clock closing time) was to drive to the end of that same road and see some ocean, so we did.

Next up was to head to a park he'd found online! Literally, all the parks, aquariums, and zoos closed at 5 except for this park. Another thing I wanted to do was to find the grocery store called Kasumi, which is like everywhere in Ibaraki (at least in my experience) and get their yaki imo because Ibaraki grows satsuma imo sweet potatoes and they're AMAZING. So, I checked google maps and found something very strange and interesting sounding nearby...Hoshiimo Jinja!!!! Hoshi imo is dried sweet potato (not AS good as yaki imo but same potato made it). It was 5 minutes from our current location, so we went. I found the god and place meant for me XD It's a newly built shrine (4 years ago, so 2018? The first year of Reiwa in the Japanese calendar) literally dedicated to hoshi imo, A shrine for dried sweet potato!!!

And they had an imo bike you could pose with XD

And there was a hoshiimo vending machine, and it was delicious, perfect texture (and also what's hanging out of my mouth in the above photos)

After that, we headed to Chinami Park. Actually I'm trying to google it now but it looks like its all like one big park with small bits all possibly even connecting to Kairakuen which is the only one of the 3 famous gardens of Japan I haven't been to yet in Mito! We didn't go very far, just wandered a bit of Senba lake, but that 15 minutes was all we needed. We found 2 black swans!! Neither of us had ever seen a real one before, and they came close when we called to them!

After that, we'd decided we’d had our fill of adventure for the day, and headed back to Tokyo (which took only about 3 hours, by the way)

The moral of this story is, as long as you are open minded and positive, you can find adventure everywhere even when your plans fail! I have many memories and so does my husband of traveling when things go wrong, and everyone gets stressed and ends up unhappy, and I'm so glad that we aren't that way. I'm always positive and see the best in everything, and he is oppositely negative and assumes the worst, but we are both very chill, go-with-the-flow people and it balances out. He keeps me realistic, but I show him the light. He's happy when I am happy, and I'm always looking at the bright side, so together, we are perfect traveling partners <3

First of the Sakura in Matsuda

Hello and hisashiburi! It’s around that time of year where work is suuuuper busy with lots of stuff coming to an end, and lots of other stuff getting ready to begin. It’s a hard time of year because the end of the winter where it’s hard to get out of a dark cold slump (every year, it happens), and then everything is getting ready to happen all at once, but you know when it all ends, it’ll be spring and warm and flowers and new beginnings! I liiiive for the sun and hot weather, and I’ve finally finished the last big work event of the (school) year. Now there’s just a few more things to tie up, and it’ll be the the transition into the new year, and then a little break for golden week! Actually, I got covid right between 2 of the biggest events of the year and my timing was so lucky (?) I guess? 😆 So I didn’t have to miss anything extremely important, and kind of got a chance to recharge between them. I was totally sick and fevered for about 4/5 day, but then I recovered. 

Anyway, enough about all that stuff, and onto why I started this post! Well, I did wanna give a little life update, but more importantly, flowers!!! Early blooming Kawazuzakura to be exact. I decided suddenly on Monday to head to Matsuda in Kanagawa and catch some of there’s sakura in bloom up on a mountain along with the yellow nanohana. 

And shockingly, I ran into some people I knew! Sundai and her man were out and about taking photos for her clothing line and I joined in a bit along with stealing a few quick snaps of the gorgeous Sundai (thank you both for brightening up my day a bit 💕🌸) 

Soooo yeah, a lonely adventure ended up being a lot more fun than I’d thought! 😊🌸

Vlog will be here after 3/21/22