Hanami

At the end of March and beginning of April in Tokyo is Hanami season. Hana means flower and Mi is to see, so hanami literally means flower viewing.

Hanami involves going to a park and hanging out with friends, snacking, and most importantly drinking.



It's quite a popular activity, to the point that Japanese businessmen sometimes skip out on work to enjoy hanami. Also, every major park is quite crowded.

Like everyone else, I took a ton of pictures. The first ones I've shown you were from Yoyogi park. There were a LOT of foreigners in Yoyogi. I'd say maybe 1/5 of the people in the park were non-Japanese, which is a really high percentage. The weather was nice on Saturday, March 29th. I drank quite a bit that night, and had quite a blast.

The following day it rained. I took some time to walk down to my local park and took some pictures on the way.


While it was cloudy, Inokashira was nice and quite crowded.

The entire park was completely full. I've never seen it even close to that busy.



Kichijoji was crowded as well. I felt like my neighborhood was all of a sudden the popular hang out.


During the week, I took some pictures around town. This was outside the window of my school.

On April 2nd, I took some time to take some more pictures at Inokashira, since it was a much nicer day.









The following Saturday, I returned yet again to take some pictures. It was really lovely and delightful despite how crowded it was. Everyone seemed to be having a great time.



This is a snack called Dango, which is a sweet snack made of rice cake and is quite like mochi. Mine was miso flavored, and quite delicious.

Here is the shrine by my house. It was best during hanami, no question.

Even the turtles were enjoying the day.

I've seen one or two turtles, but never this many.









On Sunday, April 6th, I went to a Fertility festival, which I found sadly a bit disappointing. Later on, I headed up to Wakoshi in Saitama to hang out with my friend. She took her to a park close to her house and it was unbelievable.

Unlike Inokashira or Yoyogi, the park in Wakoshi was practically empty. Also, it was the most gorgeous one during Hanami. Don't get me wrong, Yoyogi and Inokashira were both amazing, bu they were city parks. This was much more of a suburb park and less dramatic, but more open.

I also liked this scooter.




The typical "to prove I was there" picture. My hair and jacket are much shorter now.



As you can see, it's almost barren. It's only about 25 minutes outside of Ikebukuro and almost completely deserted.


I was a bit shocked at how some people, especially the women, dressed for going to the park.

After that day, all the cherry blossoms had fallen which basically ended hanami. It was quite a moving experience, and even though I was busy almost every day with school, I'm really glad I made time to see what I could.

This last picture was a building in Ikebukuro I saw while changing trains. It's quite unrelated, but I really like it.

Great weather in a great park.

I have yet again become sick. I seem to do that a lot here. While I can site the difference in climate and viruses my body isn't used to, I'm pretty sure the main reason of my illness is the dorms. Putting this many people in the same building, some of which drink with reckless abandon, someone is bound to get sick and once they do, it spreads like crazy. Also, as I may have noted, sleeping in the dorms is not the easiest thing to do, so poor health is imminent.

On the plus side, I feel healthier now than I did this morning, and I'm hoping that I'll be fine tomorrow. This isn't exactly how I would like to spend my Halloween, but it's not really a big deal anyways.


Today is not what I am here to talk about, so I'm going to move to the past. On October 20th, I had a lovely night at Sunshine City, the day was, well rather grey and cloudy. And as I wrote, Friday at Shimokitazawa, the weather was downright miserable. When I woke up on Sunday, I was pleasantly surprised to find nearly perfect weather. There is no way I could in good conscience stay at home, so off I went.

On the way to the train station I saw a friend. She was on her way home, but I didn't let her get there. As she'd never been to Harajuku on a Sunday, I forced her to experience the greatness.

I was a little disappointed that the crazy Harajuku people were not out in great numbers, however the rockers were.

I like the contrasting image of the 50's/60's dress with the cell phone.

We kept walking and on this street, I've seen a few bands playing. While normally I'd see one or two bands, on this day there were at least a dozen. I'm sure the weather had something to do with it.

Even businessmen were noticing them.



Some people were playing out of a crappy amp and some people had genuinely really nice equipment.

I can almost guarantee you that this would get stolen in any major city if it was being 'watched' by a distracted drummer.

It seemed that most people were just having fun playing. Bands were really respectful towards eachother, as they did not have a noise war. It was quite nice.

At the end of the sidewalk near the path, there was a big sign and a big crowd.

I'd seen these guys before at the same spot when my Osaka friend was in town. The sign was new though.

They also seemed to have a much larger crowd. Was it the weather or a growing fanbase? I don't know.

So, instead of crossing the bridge right away, my friend persuaded me to enter Yoyogi park. It was quite a lovely scene.

I've been told this is the largest park in Tokyo, and I'd believe it. It was qui

It was also quite busy on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon.

It was not uncomfortably busy. It just had a lot of people relaxing and having fun.

There was even a nice, well kept rose garden.



There were some quite unusual groups of people around.
The drum circle wasn't that unusual. No real surprises here.

The people practicing dance were a little strange, but that's fine.

The team of Santa Clauses struck me as a tad odd, as it was the middle of October. There is also a girl in pajamas, but she's a bit hard to see in these pictures.

I also saw, but didn't take pictures of, a man playing a wooden flute or recorder to a tree and a man playing the bagpipes on a bridge. It added quite a festival feel to what was just a good Sunday in the park.

We crossed the bridge and once again, I saw people buying and selling used goods, mostly clothes. The overwhelming majority of the people both buying and selling were teenage girls, and their wares reflected it.

There really wasn't much for me to buy.


On the other side of the bridge, it was a lot like the previously mentioned sidewalk. It was long and filled with bands. There were some more street performers.

Or, street something.

Finally, we walked to Shibuya and I introduced a friend to Freshness burger. It was quite a pleasant Sunday.