The Whole Erk Catalogue Tales of a Geek Abroad

VERY flowery indeed. On Thursday, Japan's famous cherry blossoms started blooming around here. There is a sakura tree in clear view of my window: at the start of the day it was dark pink with closed buds, but as I watched out the window over the course of the day it slowly changed to the pale, almost white pink of open blossoms. By the end of the day more than half the flowers had bloomed.

On Saturday, we had a midday hanami with our old friend Saito. Hanami literally translates to "flower watching" (hana: flower, mi: watch). I went on one of these last year, but I believe I failed to blog about it. Last year, Saito, his friend Miura, I, and my friend Alisa went to Funaoka park to see what are billed as "the nicest blossoms in Miyagi", possibly in all of Tohoku. It was cold and dark and not much blossom viewing was done.

I suppose this is a good point to explain the whole phenomenon of ~~mi festivals in Japan. Hanami is the biggest, but not the only one. Another popular one is tsukimi, [full] moon watching; autumn leaf watching is big as well. The major hanami is cherry blossom viewing, but plum viewing is not unheard of despite the weather in plum season being unpleasantly chilly, and later blooming flowers get their share of appreciation.

What's with all the viewing, you might wonder? Well, the real deal is twofold. Watching still life scenes is a very good excuse for (1) getting outside with the family/loved ones to have a picnic, and (2) getting outside with friends and drinking huge amounts of alcohol. The two don't generally overlap, I think.

Now that the explanations are out of the way: last year, Saito and Miura took it on themselves to find out if Alisa could be made inebriated at all. This year they were full of anecdotes about her alcohol-strength, which impressed them to no end. I suspect as the tale grows, Alisa will become a mighty pillar of sobriety in a veritable sea of ethanol. It's reaching that stage already. Alisa: you're famous.

This year was, aside from the lack of Alisa, a lot more fun. It was more blossom-watchy, for one thing. We went out at noon, went for a short walk, and then rode a taxi up to the Funaoka park (it would have been a five minute walk, which is unacceptable to the Japanese "oyaji" old-guy-crowd when out looking for a good time). The weather was warm and sunny and the park was packed, as was all of Funaoka. I realised that day that I have finally gotten used to Japan's crowd phenomenon, and don't really feel squashed when I go out on a picnic and find myself in a park with about three hundred other picnickers. Jen was more like me last year, a bit put off by the crowds, but I think she got into the swing of things once we set up.

The picnic was, as one expects from a picnic, loaded with delicious grub. Jen and I brought what we described to our friends as a "Canadian-style picnic": a baguette, a small block of cumin-gouda cheese, and a container of balsamic vinegar mixed with olive oil. None of these things are Canadian, nor are any of them from a single European nation. That, plus the fact that we were eating it in Japan, makes it pretty Canadian indeed I think. Saito and Miura are now hearty fans of balsamic vinegar/olive oil as a bread dip, and of cumin-gouda cheese; we are obligated to find them a supplier of the latter. On the Japanese end of the spectrum, we ate yakitori (fried chicken on a stick), yakisoba (fried noodles), fried corn on the cob on a stick (yum), kushidango (rice balls on a stick with sweet sauce), and fried hot dogs on a stick (almost like home).

As we're in Japan, and were hanging out with old dudes, a copious amount of alcohol was consumed. Draft beer was supplied by nearby food stalls, and Jen and I brought a huge bottle of Japanese sake (nihonshu to the locals). Since neither of us drink nihonshu at home, we figured Miura and Saito would help us reduce our stock of it... it's too heavy to card a 2L bottle all the way back to Canada, and Jen got it as a present. Unfortunately for my constitution, the major consumers of nihonshu turned out to be Saito and myself. I am still suffering from the repercussions. Thankfully we didn't drink the whole thing.

There's not much else to say! For a while our friend Rosalee and a Japanese friend of hers showed up, which was fun. For the rest of the time, we ate and drank and relaxed, looked at flowers, made old man puns, and enjoyed the sunny weather. I can think of worse ways to spend an afternoon.

At around four o'clock, we returned to Natori. Saito and Miura, in a more advanced stage of sloshedness than we were by far, tried to get us to come along for a second party, but we instead headed home for a bit where I drank coffee and Jen took a nap. We needed to recharge our batteries, as at seven we went out again to meet Bill and his visiting sister and her husband at Murasaki, a nearby pub. I am glad to say I had nothing more to drink, which probably saved my life. We had a fine night and went to bed at eleven, which would have been fine if not for our plans for the next day. "What plans," I hear you ask (or rather imagine you might ask if you were both physically present and an obliging audience)? Tune in to my next post, entitled "A very flowery weekend: Sunday", or "Jen and Eric's lessons in biting off more than you can chew".