Hanami

Ian and I have talked about this quite a bit.  We decided that the Japanese are a scared people.  They are skittish and afraid of darn near everything, but they have NOTHING to be afraid of.  If something scares a Japanese (no matter how insignificant it might be), he or she tends to OVER-REACT by jumping and saying “KOWAI!” (“Scary!”)  They’re afraid of everything!  They wear surgical masks because they are afraid of spreading/receiving germs.  They drive the ridiculous 40 KPH (about 25 MPH) speed limit because they are afraid of speeding.  They are afraid of foreign influence changing their culture.  They are afraid of the sun tanning their skin, so even on the hottest days of July they’ll cover up each square millimeter of skin, down to the fingers.  They live in constant fear of someone stealing something from them/breaking into their house/car even though there have probably been a total of five recorded thefts in ALL of Japan’s history.  Anytime I, as a foreigner, get sick they are afraid that I’m dying.  They are afraid that if they don’t eat rice or drink green tea every day, they’ll get fat.  They are afraid that if they sleep with a fan on, it will cause them to die.  Do you see where I’m going with all of this?  Ian and I can’t believe how fearful of a society the Japanese are when they really and truly have NOTHING to be afraid of!!

The other day we were talking with our friends and asking the question “If you could trade houses with anyone in Kuma-gun, who would it be?”  I said that I would want Melissa’s house.  I think her house is the perfect size.  She has a nice entertaining space, her own bedroom with a bed, spacious kitchen, and even a car port!  Ian said that he’d want Margo’s house.  It’s true…..Margo does have the biggest house in Kuma-gun.  Her two story house is perfect for entertaining, and she has so much extra space that she has an extra tatami room with nothing in it!  I was really surprised by the answers of other people.  Melissa, Mollee, and Brian all agreed that if they could have anyone’s house, it would be OURS!  They said that it’s the perfect size for just one person and doesn’t require cleaning a lot of extra useless space.  Plus it’s easier to cool during the summer and heat in the winter.  I honestly couldn’t believe that people would want OUR itty-bitty house! 

Saturday morning we woke up and Skyped a few people back at home before heading up to Mizukami.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous, and Mizukami is famous in our area for cherry blossoms.  A very traditional Japanese thing to do is to have a picnic under the cherry blossoms, so we packed a lunch and tossed a blanket in our car.  We met up with Sara, Mollee, Colin, and Margo (who had all just been in Itsuki bungee-jumping—CRAZY!).  All of us camped underneath a lovely blossoming cherry tree, eating, talking, and enjoying the sunshine.  Ian and Mollee both got some great pictures on their fancy-smancy camera while the rest of us snapped pictures on our iPhones.  Once the sun went behind the mountains, it got a bit chilly, so we packed up and went our separate ways.

 

Devin rode with us, and as we were on our way back to Yunomae, I told her about the amazing park in Mizukami and how awesome the playground equipment was.  I told her that we’d have to go play there sometime, and she said, “What about now?”  Like a five-year-old, I couldn’t deny the opportunity to play at the park, so we backtracked to it.  As soon as I parked and pulled the keys from the ignition, we all ran out of the car like excited elementary kids.  The reason that we like that playground so much is because there is equipment there that would NEVER be allowed in American playgrounds because someone would get hurt on it, and then their parents would sue……  There is a giant rope course, climbing wall, oversized cat head that you can climb through, a long slide built into the mountain, and many other fun things.  Ian and I tackled the rope course first.  Like monkeys, we raced to the top.  However, Devin struggled to get a few feet off the ground and blamed it on her lack of climbing trees as a child.  Ha!  Ha!  Even though daylight was mostly gone, that didn’t stop us from playing to our hearts’ content.  We climbed to the top of the slide and laughed the whole way down as we slid.  We climbed through the giant cat head.  We played on the see-saw (even though the weight limit was forty kilos, and each of us DEFINITELY weighs more than that).  It was a GREAT night!    

 

I’ll wrap it up here.  I’m actually a little miffed with this silly blog right now because I had written a blog about the entire weekend on Tuesday and just needed to add pictures.  I guess I forgot to save my work or something because when I went back to add the pictures, everything that I wrote about Saturday and Sunday was gone.  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! *sigh*