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Published: April 10th 2006
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Yawatashi-Koen八幡市公園
The second spot we visited. More family oriented and very beautiful! In the very near future I will be preparing to write a research paper for my Contemporary Issues in Japanese Culture and Society class. The topic I have chosen is Japanese flower viewing, which is called Hanami. This past weekend accompanied by Tsukasa (a fluent Japanese speaker - just in case I chocked under pressure) I interviewed approximately 15 groups at Maruyama-Koen located in Kyoto. The temperature was perfect, the Sakura were in full bloom, and I was attempting to figure out the ins and outs of what makes Japanese people act so ‘un-Japanese’ during this time.
So let’s start off by explaining the Saturday before hitting the parks to interview and all of that…. So Saturday I was able to meet up with Levi, Levi’s buddy Shin, and Tsu for some Korean dinner by Hirakata-shi station. The food was delicious, but in a way Korean food reaches this level of so spicy your food has no taste any more level. You see the ingredients in front of you and together it just looks so incredibly appetizing and then you mix it all together making Kim chi stew and the flavor just vanishes and leaves behind total spice. It was
Hirakata Sakura
This is the Sakura I get to see in my own backyard! still quite a happy and filling meal regardless. Afterwards we checked out Tsutaya (Japan’s answer to blockbuster) and I received a lot of film recommendations. Actually I must confess that I have become quite a big fan of Japanese films. I mean I’m sure I’m not the only one a little jaded by big budget Hollywood films with only sex and violence offered with a small amount of actual content. You should check out some foreign films too, it’ll be good for you!
Levi was heading into Umeda for the evening along with Shin to do some ethnographic work in the gay community and I decided to stay in Hirakata for the night because I was going to do this whole survey the following day. So we separated…Levi had a wonderful night becoming a bar tender, while I had a night wondering the streets looking for a place to sleep. You see Tsu and I decided to stay together for the night instead of going home, but the seminar house refuses guests after 10PM. We were going to stay in a love hotel just so we could get some sleep, but that was out of the question busy the
place was way too busy being a Saturday night and all. We next got lost on the way to the station because I definitely took some random street I have never used before. After we regained out sense of direction we went to Green Karaoke to check out the prices. We paid absolutely too much to sleep in a karaoke box for a night. At least we got to sing some great songs like Tsu rapping Eminem and me dishing out all types of oldies. My parents would’ve been proud to hear my rendition of ‘stand by me’!
So Sunday morning arrived and we got the boot from the karaoke box around 6AM. We were freezing as we looked at the sun and pleaded with it to rise just a little quicker. We managed to make it to a 24 hour cafe to burn some time and get warm. After this we embarked on our Hanami filled day! Right away we knew it was going to be ok when even the local trains were so full you couldn’t find a seat anywhere. We took the crowed express to Kyoto and made our way to the park. The entire park
Tsu at Hirakata
This past weekend we were devoted to these wonderful trees. was in full bloom and was a magical sight to see. From the time I first arrived to Japan I had been waiting for this moment of Sakura happiness. After taking some photos and praying we made our way through the park to search for happy looking Hanami partaking Japanese. This isn’t so hard to do because most people get pretty drunk early on and just nap and chat all day long.
We interviewed various people from families and co-workers to mahjong club or old college buddies. Everyone was very nice and only one group actually refused to be interviewed out of 15! Maybe it was because they were much older and I am a foreigner, but that didn’t get me down. Tsu and I even got offered to sit down, stay awhile and drink some beer. We refused but accepted the Tea they offered us instead. We left the park for our next destination - my Japanese teacher’s recommendation spot, Yawatashi.
It wasn’t very far to reach this spot by train, but Tsu and I wasted no time sleeping as soon as we found a seat on the express train. Within minutes we were fast asleep with
Osaka Castle Hall
Many were enjoying the sakura along the rivers at Osaka castle... our mouths wide open. Tsu, being Japanese and all is quite used to this routine so we managed to wake up just as we pulled into the station and off we went. Our little power nap was pretty helpful.
Yawatashi was a much more family-oriented picnic/Hanami spot compared to Maruyama-koen. Every family was equipped with a huge barbeque set. Skewered chicken rather than old fashioned hamburgers were the food of choice. This park was amazingly beautiful as I’ll show you. Just amazing! It was ours and 2,000 other people’s secret cheery blossom garden.
We ended our day by returning to our very own local Makino Park to enjoy Bentou box lunches and ice cream, but couldn’t resist being recruited into a group a drunken old man wanting so desperately to communicate. Up until this point our peaceful meal and chatting was very pleasant as opposed to this complete uneasiness with the drunken grandpa’s. They wanted to do karaoke together, but there was no way that whole plan was going to go down. We ended up leaving with free drinks, candy, and peanuts, as well as a few comments about Pearl Harbor part 2. I think they were just
kidding about that though…
All in all it was a wonderful day! Everyone was very kind to me and I was able to do a lot of fieldwork for this paper. Let’s hope it all works out well. Until next time..
- Zach
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anonymous
non-member comment
Gah, I wanna see it so much!!!! T__T I'm glad you got to see such beautiful sites, even if it makes me jealous. No sakura here in good ol' Indiana. Hey, when (if ever) are you coming back to the US?