Oh look! Cherry blossom!

Yes, more. One of the joys of living in the inaka is that the sakura really never seems to stop. You are placed in an ideal spot to enjoy 3 weeks of full-bloom (mankai) cherry blossom. It hits Okayama city one weekend, then Katsuyama the next and finally (in fact over a week later because they had SNOW again last week) it hits Shinjo, a famous village a half an hour uphill north of here.

So last Tuesday (April 25th) I went with Nao-chan, Kanae-san and Sayuri-chan to see the sakura in the famous old main street of Shinjo and stunned them all by wearing short sleeves while they wore coats and jumpers.

Now, answers on a postcard: why do I now have a really bad cold?

And you haven't seen the end of the sakura yet. Shinjo bosts another surprise- no, not the town office with a steeple-topped tower that resembles an Eastern-European church)- it has the elusive PINK SAKURA! Yes, the pink cherry blossoms that look like plum blossoms, but actually are CHERRY BLOSSOM and are very pretty indeed. If I sound slightly crazed about this it's because pink cherry blossom is prettier and largely unheard of in the whole cherry blossom frenzy...

As if trying to tell the Japanese that some other flowers are as beautiful as sakura, nature plonks this purple pansy-esque flower on a cherry tree. The many varieties of cherry trees here are very old, covered in mosses and sprouting other species. 

Mary, Sue, Mary-Sue, Sally, Billy, Bob, Billy-Bob...

How to name my 10 new babies? I am proud. Here they are, perfectly formed. Of course they are not really babies, they are ichigo daifuku, the food that Jesus and the angels surely eat in heaven. And like all Godly things they are mixed race, 3 with red bed paste and 7 with white bean paste (which I suspect is just the red beans shelled...). Anyway, the birth was difficult and four of the babies were, um, swallowed during their formation. But these 10 live to see the world. Until tomorrow when they will see the inside of various people's stomachs.

Of course in every birth there is a lot of mess. Here the after birth is in desperate need of a domestic to clean it up. And keep the placenta away from Mr Cruise! (And tell Katie I didn't make any noise during the procedure...)

Come little children! Sweeties! Eggs! (?!)

Using pictures brazenly stolen from Nickname Pending's blog, I will tell you in brief the story of last weekend. We went to the orphanage again! There, that was brief...

Actually it was a big deal. NP (as Community chair on our AJET committee) had organised to do an Easter bash at the orphanage, albeit the week after Easter. So what seemed like an army of people prepared eggs for the occasion, Bob, NP and I staying up until 1am the night before to finish blowing together (oo-er missus) and decorating eggs. And then on Saturday we were up early doing last minute snack shopping and arriving in the city to ferry JETs to the orphanage for the 1st annual Orphanage Easter Egg Hunt. The kids were great- funny, friendly and extremely happy and excited from the start, and moreso when they had balloon fights, painted eggs, did an egg hunt and then gorged on chocolate and other sugary treats indoors.

And here is the inspiration for the gig (no, not the cutest and most endearing child in the world ever, the hulking great, funny man on the right- Matt). He wanted to do the Easter trip last year too, but it didn't get off the ground. 

Here we see trip organiser Nickname Pending attempting to sneak a rather bookish orphan out the doors. But bookish still equals cute in Japan. And all you need to feed them is a packet of tofu and some spinach every day! And they're toilet trained! Children are a marvellous invention... 

And a final stolen picture demonstrates the mind-broadening effect that Asia is having on us. I say bibimba, you say bibomba, I say kimchee-a you say kimchaa-a, bibimba, bibomba etc... Let's all go to Korea for a break! With their winter attire, Bae-Yon Joon and female companion inspire us on our way to Kathryn's leaving do.

Boys! And fish! Boys!! FISH!!! What?

Two weekends ago I got it wrong. I rested on a Friday before cleaning on a Saturday morning and heading out to the city for a big night out and an activity filled Sunday. I wonder why I was so tired all week... But during the evening out with Julia we stumbled across this sight in Okayama's covered walkway. Men and women were hanging koinobori, or carp streamers, throughout the place in preparation for children's day (known as boy's day until 1948) on May the 5th. This day aims to stress the importance of respecting childrens' character and promotes health and happiness (no clips round the ear on May 5th thank you very much) and children thank their parents for the tender love and kindness they've been given. How sweet.

This is Julia pointing to the fish before they're hung up. We were on our way from a coffee shop having have Indian for dinner. Next stop was boozing at Red Moon before a trip to an unusually Russian-hooker-and-pimp free Desperadoes'. Although our dancing made the place a bit more scandalous... 

And here they are the next morning. I was very tired too as this was taken at 10:50am, and we hadn't gotten to bed until 4:30am. And I had a full day ahead with lunch and English club in the city and then cooking dinner for Kawate sensei and Kubo sensei back at my place. Busy busy busy!  

Don't need WHAT?

It struck me last week that I am indeed a bit stupid.

For the past year, under the guise of being environmentally friendly, I have refused plastic bags at convenience stores (combinis) with the phrase, "tebukuro irimasen". Which means, "I don't need a bag".

Except it doesn't. It means "I don't need gloves". Fukuro is the word for bag. No combini staff member ever corrected me, instead probably being confused as to why I was asking about gloves. But I knew the word for bag all along.

Which means only one thing:

I am indeed a bit stupid.

The Kuse Tunnel at night- MANKAI! MANKAI! 

People enjoying hanami in Kuse.  

Gratuitous cherry blossom shot. They are only just opening in my end of the prefecture... 

Cherry blossoms in Okayama city. Please look carefully and notice the inconspicuous blue plastic sheeting... 

Singing for your supper...

It's been a back to basics weekend here in Japan- returning to the traditional and the familiar under the guise of appreciating what's past and what is to come. Or something. Basically I've been to karaoke A LOT recently. And it's a trend I shall do my best to continue.

We'll start by bypassing the first four days of last week as they were largely terminal (the boredom only broken by conversations with the school caretaker lady, the school nurse, and Nao chan) and we'll skip straight to Friday evening when it started. Nao-chan, two of her friends (Kanae-san and Yoshiko-san), Nickname pending and I headed to the kaiten sushi restaurant (revolving sushi) in Kuse- the slightly inferior one which we've been visiting since BIG sushi closed down. The only plus is that at least two of the staff are handsome. And after eating lots of things that not even the Japanese among us could identify, we headed back to the Riverside hotel, Ochiai, the first time I've been back since perhaps last August. And we were greeted with surprised looks by the staff. So it was 2 and a half hours of drinking, dancing and singing with Nickname Pending and I slaughtering Hirai Ken songs and then impressing everyone by singing songs in French (Champs Elysees for her, Joe Le Taxi pour moi).

Saturday was a more sober day, but sociable none the less as lots of ALTs met in the city to enjoy o-hanami. Hanami means "cherry blossom viewing" but could equally mean "getting trolleyed under a cherry blossom tree" as that's what seems to really be going on a lot of the time. But in true gaijin style we did everything we could to stand out without even trying. For a start we managed to sit under a tree with no cherry blossom on it that was in fact possibly not even a cherry blossom tree. Our picnic, a ramshackle mess of tasty snacks in no way resembled the neatly packed bento boxes of the Japanese hanami-ers with their sushi rolls and onigiri. And our picnic blanket was one of Amy and Herb's old army blankets rather than the traditional blue plastic sheeting from that 100 yen store that all the Japanese used. But it was still a treat, and we proved to be adequate fodder for the various interested passers by who either stared, laughed, pointed or took photos.

As usual the day was entirely centred around food and booze as we headed to an izakaya for tea and then trotted off to the Aussie bar for some beer before bedtime. Well, it's a damn site better than tears before bedtime I can tell you.

Sunday was a day of dawdling, as we woke up slowly and Herb made us all delicious pancakes for breakfast. Amy, Bob and I continued the slow start in town meeting Betsy in a coffee house before doing a spot of shopping and heading our seperate ways. I had to get back for what I thought was an enkai, so I left with just enough (as in the bare minimum) time to spare only to face hardcore traffic all the way back. This made me an hour late so I was rather worried, but it turned out that it didn't matter too much as we were just going to karaoke. So at 7pm on Sunday night I was collected from my house and driven to... Riverside hotel Ochiai! Fukushima sensei (a guy involved in the Saturday night teaching session I'd done a few weeks before) was karaoke-ing with his friends and had invited me along. And I'd never met any of them before, but we had a great time. And a long time. I had planned not to drink too much, but when you're in karaoke for FIVE HOURS there's only so much willpower to be had. We left at around 12:15, and fortunately for me I wasn't too smashed. School yesterday would have been murder. As it was it was verging on manslaughter before the weekend had started...

And for this week? As the pace of karaoke has picked up again to once a week I shall be doing my best to maintain it. Tomorrow night Nickname Pending and I are heaind back to Ochiai to practice Japanese songs and practice kanji reading (karaoke- fun! Educational!) and I may try and swing some more at the weekend... Who needs limits? I WANT IT ALL!

Receptioning people. It's always been a popular verb has "receptioning". I reception, you reception, they reception. I'm so happy being an English teacher.

Linda? Is that you Linda? Somewhere out there... Sally IS Linda Ronstandt. 

Jamie and the cherry tree compere. 

Next outfit 

Next outfit change with new hairdo 

Bang that drum! Rock n' roll! 

Sally, me and the shirt collars from hell. AAARGH! 

The paper hat hid lovely sushi and the dome on the left had fish eggs unedrneath. And the thing inside the shell was lovely. Although I have no idea what it was.