We met up with friends around 2 on Saturday afternoon. It was a perfect day for a hanami (previously mentioned, picnic type of thing under the cherry trees): near peak bloomage going on, sunny (for the most part), and warm. The setting was the sprawling banks of the Saigawa. This is the river that skirts the edge of downtown Kanazawa and empties out into the Sea of Japan a few miles away. I really don't spend enough time down here. It has a beautiful backdrop of mountains (which are still snow covered, but not for long), and is flanked by wide, grassy areas on both sides. While playing frisbee might be a bit hazardous, there's plenty of room to spread out and have some fun.
Given the perfect conditions, I was really surprised there weren't more people out taking it all in. There were lots of people strolling about and on bicycles, but as you can see, only a few hanamis were in progress. The tell tale sign of a hanami: the blue tarp. People go to various lengths to have a proper hanami; note the tarp on the left, in the middle of which is a large kerosene heater for when it cooled off after dark (not quite sure the sense in having a heater in the middle of the outdoors).
Hanamis are also big with companies, who use them as a chance to get employees together to have some fun outside of the office, and build that all important solidarity. Chieko was telling me that the younger employees are sometimes sent to popular hanami locations (usually big parks in cities) a night in advance to squat on prime spots, so they and their coworkers will have a good place to get their party on the next day.
As the sun set on our own modest hanami, hours of subsisting on nothing more than alcohol and finger food had taken it's toll, and we needed a legitimate meal. So it was off to an izakaya (bar/restaurant type of place).
Common practice at many izakaya is to check your shoes at the door. It's kind of nice actually to stroll around the restaurant in your socks. But when it comes to hitting the head, nobody wants to go in there shoeless. Thus, you'll note the pile of slippers on the floor in the bathroom. It's a good thing I was well primed at this point (and usually am by the time I'm using the bathroom at an izakaya), otherwise I may have considered how disgusting the prospect of putting on communal slippers in the bathroom of a place full of drunks actually is.
Now, with bellies full of not just booze, but food too, a small contingent of our frayed hanami crew were in the mood for more action. And that meant karaoke. I'd never sung karaoke before coming to Japan, and when I attended my first karaoke night, I was pretty hesitant. But then something happened to me which happens to many people who are uptight about singing karaoke: I drank a lot of beer, and I sang a song, and it was fun. So I drank another beer, and sang another song, and the night went on, and in the end, they had to pry the microphone out of my hands. Karaoke is FUN!
These days I'm more comfortable in my karaoke skin. Plus, you can't beat this set up. You get your own private room, with a phone book full of songs and gigantic remote control that you use to zap the song's number into a machine. You get tambourines. There's a phone on the wall that you can pick up and order beer, and they BRING it to you within minutes. And people in karaoke joints are always crazy/amazingly hammered. I ambled into the wrong booth with three college students in it, one of whom had decided he didn't need his shirt to sing karaoke.
That's the thing with karaoke places though. It's basically a big hall with lots of rooms on either side, each of which is numbered. There are windows, but they are heavily tinted, to the point that you can't really tell who is inside. They are also soundproof, so you can't really hear what's being sung inside. So my advice, when your tipsy in a karaoke joint and you go to use the bathroom, check the number on your door on your way out. Otherwise you keep opening doors to other peoples' rooms, and catch some half naked Japanese college student singing his heart out to some J-pop song while his buddies are slapping him in the ass with tambourines.
For some reason we deemed it necessary to hit one more bar after karaoke, which in hindsight really wasn't necessary at all. And so we slept very late on Sunday. In the afternoon, Chieko and I took a drive around town and stopped nearby to take in some MORE cherry blossoms. They don't last long, you know, so you kind of have to obsess about them while they last. This little tunnel of cherry blossom love is alongside the trash-clogged river near our apartment.
On Sunday night we headed down to Kenrokuen, which is famous and beautiful garden that we're lucky enough to have here in Kanazawa. During cherry blossom season, they light up the cherry trees and open the park at night. This was quite beautiful actually, and the atmosphere was very festive. There were lots of people here, all losing their minds over how damn beautiful cherry blossoms are at night. There were also lots of vendors set up selling tasty treats. Most of my pictures came out horrible, and this one isn't very good either, but it gives you an sense. If you want to see some pictures of Kenrokuen in the daylight, go here.
And so we've been back to work for 2 days now. I feel really refreshed and happy to be teaching again. I've taught nearly all my new classes and so far the students are awesome. You never know what you're going to get starting a new term regarding student's attitudes and the general personality of a class, but so far it seems I'm pretty lucky.
I had one of those mornings today when you wake up and tell yourself 'tonight I'm going to bed early,' and I'm trying to stick to that plan. So after a quick stop at the ironing board, it's off to la la land for me.
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