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Published: April 20th 2008
Makino Park
The park in Makino was full of sakura trees!Hello everyone! So I just got done with the worst week of school ever...this past week I had 2 papers due and a couple of tests and quizzes too. It was not fun at all. The papers weren't even that difficult, but it was just hard for me to think...cause I haven't had to do much of that this semester! My classes are so easy and I haven't had to do much work for them at all. So this whole semester has been like a vacation to me...and my brain must have gone on vacation too! But I'm glad it's finally over and now I can go back to doing absolutely nothing once again 😉
And speaking of doing nothing...I really haven't been doing much at all in April as far as travelling and sightseeing is concerned. I don't know why, but me and Leilani haven't felt like doing anything all month...maybe it's because we did so much travelling in the first 2 months and got burnt out, or maybe it's because we spent too much money on shopping these past 2 months and now we're poor. Whatever the reason, we just haven't been motivated to do anything! And it's
Park
More of the park kind of sad to say that we've spent the past 3 weekends in Hirakata hanging around the seminar house watching music videos, movies, and The Hills on my computer lol. And eating a lot of junk food while watching them...I don't know,we're both just kind of waiting for May to get here so we can go to OKINAWA!
I'm SO excited about Okinawa! All I want to do is relax and lay on the beach all week. No crazy sightseeing and stressing out like I have had to do in all my other trips, like Hiroshima and Tokyo. No, this is going to be a real vacation and I plan to do nothing except relax. Okinawa is supposed to be so beautiful...white sand beaches and turquoise blue water! Ahhh I can't wait to be there...
And we're hoping that after Okinawa we will be ready to start travelling and doing stuff again! But we're only going to have about 2 and a half weeks left when we get back, so we'll definitely stay busy. Wow, hard to believe the semester's already coming to an end. Sometimes it seems like I've been in Japan forever, but at the same
Hanami-ing
Me, Taheer, Terri, and Erica hanami-ing in Makino Park time it feels like it went by incredibly fast...definitely doesn't feel like 4 months at all.
But anyway, I wanted to tell you all about this great little tradition in Japan during sakura season called
hanami. When the cherry blossoms are in full bloom people will go to parks and set up a little picnic with their family and friends under the trees and just hang out and drink sake. So of course I had to have my own hanami experience! One weekend (when Leilani was in Tokyo) my friend Taheer suggested we do hanami because he knew of a good park in Makino that had a lot of sakura trees. So I agreed to go and we found a couple of other girls, Erica and Terri, to come too. So we all packed up some snacks and blankets, bought some rose wine, and walked to the park, which was quite an experience...
Taheer had broken his leg earlier in the semester in a tragic bicycle accident (lol), and he had to have surgery so he was still in a wheelchair. So we had to push him in his wheelchair all the way to Makino! And it's mostly
Hanging Out
Me, Taheer, and Terri hanami-ing uphill, so it was really a challenge. We would take turns pushing him but it was so hard! Well we finally made it up the hill, but of course it started to go downhill. At this point Terri was guiding the wheelchair and well...we accidently ran Taheer into a fence! I know, it's horrible, but it was also really funny. His wheelchair started going so fast that she couldn't control it anymore and it went sideways and into the fence...it was just a metal wire fence, of course, but he moved it a good couple of feet! Luckily he was ok, but for some reason he didn't let us push him from then on...
Well when we finally got to the park we set up our blankets under a tree...well kind of under a tree. The park was really crowded so we didn't get the best choice of spots, but it was decent. Taheer set up his laptop so we could listen to music and we ate our snacks, drank our wine, and chatted. It was really nice to sit in the park on such a pretty day and just chill out. There were people hanging out everywhere, some
Playground
The playground with all the little kids people were barbecuing, and others were tossing balls or throwing frisbees. And we just happened to be sitting by a playgroud so there were a ton of kids playing on it. There were a lot of boys in baseball uniforms (just finished with baseball practice perhaps?) playing and they nearly hit us with their soccer ball a few times. It was so cute because they would say "sorry, sorry" and we would be like "daijobu, daijobu" (that means "it's ok"). But it was funny how they would talk to us in English. So we started watching them and they could tell we were, and this one kid started showing off. He would do mean things to the other kids and go out of his way to be noticed. Eventually we started talking to them and they came over and talked to us. We asked them their names and how old they were (they said 12 but I think they were lying) and they asked us where we were all from. They were especially intrigued by Terri who is from Kenya lol. So we actually made some new friends! It was a lot of fun. So we stayed in the park
Bad Boy
This was the boy who kept showing off for us. He was throwing a ball up into the trees to knock down all the flowers... for a few hours until it started to get dark. There were some other students from Seminar House 1 sitting nearby and they invited us to go to karaoke, so that's where we headed to next...
Karaoke in Japan is so much fun! I actually had never gone to karaoke here until that weekend. I guess it was karaoke weekend for me or something, because I actually went for the first time the night before. My friend Ben invited me to go with him and a few other people. So me, him, and this other guy Andy walked to Makino and ate dinner first at a toriniku place kind of like 280. Then we met Ben's Japanese friend Waka, a really nice girl, at Makino Station. Big Wave, the karaoke place, was right across the street from the station, and when we got there Will the Korean (that's what we call him lol) was there to meet us too. So the 5 of us got a room and did some karaoke! It was a lot of fun...we had the music so loud and everyone was singing. It wasn't like any karaoke experience I've had back home...this was more like
Baseball Kids
The cute little boys in their baseball uniforms a big party! They even brought us maracas and tambourines, so we all had some kind of instrument, and there were 2 microphones, and we were all up dancing and singing! And they have so many songs...both Japanese and American! Ben and Will did "Beatiful Girls" and then me and Ben did "Sexyback" (I was Timbaland lol). And of course I had to sing "Don't Stop Believing" and a little NSYNC "Bye Bye Bye." And then we all did "Fergalicious." But the award for best performance of the night definitely went to Ben and Andy's duet of "My Humps." Just use your imagination on that one haha... So that was my first karaoke experience. The second time was the following night after doing hanami. We all went to Big Wave, and this time we took advantage of the "all-you-can-drink" option, so that definitely livened things up a bit! I had a lot of fun that night too. Only I didn't know the guys from Seminar House 1 who we went with, except for Isha, so it was a little more awkward. But still very fun!
Oh and the fun doesn't stop there...because a few days later we all went
New Friends
Our new friends we made at the playground. They don't look 12 do they? back to Makino Park to do hanami again! This time we had a lot more people...me, Leilani, Taheer, Robert, and Andy. Then a few other French people joined us later. And it was less crowded this time so we got a good spot under a big sakura tree. And this time we drank plum wine, or umeshuu, which is soooo good. Robert found these 2 liter cartons (they looked like orange juice cartons you could drink for breakfast) of plum wine so we drank 4 liters total that night! Along with some other wine before that...and let's just say that me and Leilani should not be allowed to drink together lol. It was so pretty though because whenever the wind would blow the sakura petals be blown everywhere! They would fall down on us, and it looked like it was snowing! They were everywhere, in the food and in our hair and even in our wine (I think it adds good flavor lol). It was such a beautiful sight. But once it started to get dark it began to rain, so we decided to pack up and continue the party back at the seminar house.
So that was my
Sunset
The beautiful sunset at the park hanami and karoake experiences! I really enjoyed hanami, it was nice to spend time outside and hang out with friends...something we don't get to do too often. So I guess not travelling as much isn't that bad because I've had some good experiences just staying around Hirakata this month. But I'm definitely read to start back once May comes around..
Only 12 more days until OKINAWA 😊
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