Azalea Festival

On the way to the wisteria gardens several weeks ago, my carload and I saw a sign for a city celebrating an Azalea festival and we stopped in for a peak. First we hit some tourist shops in the town before hiking into the woods and up a hill to see the beautiful sights. At the top of the hill were fox-themed musical performers from the shrine and enough snacks and plants for sail to keep anyone entertained, but the best part was the view. So I will leave you to enjoy some of the sights and pictures.

While watching a fox filled musical performance, I ate an ice-cold cucumber on a stick. It was a refreshing and delicious snack for such a hot day.

The red arrow points to the top of the hill where the festival was.

(The picture was taken as we were getting back into the car.)

Easter 曙

By the time this post is published, Easter will be long gone... but I want to talk about it anyway. This was the first year that I hollowed and painted my own egg. It was the first year that Easter grass was no where to be seen or purchased. And this was my first Easter outside of the States (or outside of the Christian west, for that matter). In Japan, Easter slips by unannounced and un-celebrated. Even the secular symbols of the holiday were so subtle that they were obscured by daily life.

My church did celebrate the season. 

In church there were gifts and psalms and supper and community and communion. In fact, my church celebrated it as well as any church I have been to back in the states, yet there seemed to be something missing.

When I was in college, my church held an Easter morning psalm sing in the church cemetery, a beautiful image of the mystery of Easter. After all, the bodies of the Christian dead - from months or centuries past - are just seeds dormant in the ground, waiting for the day when they will burst forth in a new and glorious form. But that isn't true in Japanese cemeteries. The bodies of non-Christians will not rise again; they will not follow our resurrected LORD into the new creation. The realization that Japanese cemeteries are not sown with hope of the resurrection but are truly filled with death was a sobering and wrenching and lonely feeling.

It makes me say, "Here I am, send me." but I don't know yet where or what or how.

God, what is your plan for me here?

Here is some hymn music in Japanese. 

Sakura 桜

        One of the charming things about Japan is its attentiveness to the changing of the seasons. In America fashions only seamed to follow seasons enough for fashionistas to accuse something of being "so last season". In contrast, seasons in Japan are observed so that the things that people eat and wear are reflections and reminders of the weather outside my window.  Winter, summer, autumn, and spring each have their own palates, decorations, colors, and clothing. Of course, one of the hardest parts of seasonality is the brevity of each. As foods and fashions change with the season, so a delicious flavor will only be available for a couple weeks before it is packed away till the next year to make way for a new treat.  

       Perhaps tho most astonishing and transient of these seasons is お花見 or cherry blossom viewing season. Japan is famous for its cherry trees. It is depicted in manga, in paintings, and it was even the state gift to America after the World War. Now I understand why the Japanese culture is so obsessed with this flower. The trees bloom at the first of spring - they are the first spring flowers to fully bloom (before tulips or daffodils) and the small (2" diameter) flowers coat each tree in the tens of thousands. The trees are clouds of cotton candy pink for a few days and then the petals fall. One at a time the five petals of each flower are caught up by the spring wind and twist and twirl their way to earth where they become a soft blanket on the ground. As the petals fall, friends and families often gather together for a picnic under the beautiful trees. お花見　O-hana-mi picnics feature delicious (seasonal) foods, 桜 sakura (cherry blossom) flavored  desserts, good wine, and lasting memories. 

        It is difficult to stand in the soft sweetness of cherry blossoms, a flurry of pink petals whirling through the air and coating the ground, without a sense of wonder and excitement and a thanks to God. Their beauty is made more stunning by the fact that the life of a sakura flower is only 10-14 days from initial bloom to final fall. The Japanese government even rejected a genetically altered, longer lasting bloom because it detracted from their temporal beauty. Because there are so few days to take in the beauty, it is important to enjoy every day. Pink lanterns are even hung for nighttime  viewing of the trees. 

       The Sakura River flows through the heart of Mito (pictured above) and over half a mile of the river is lined on either side with cherry trees. For two weeks that is where I ate my lunch and walked and thought. To describe the sensation of sitting below an avenue of cherry tree in bloom, it is like taking a deep breath, closing your eyes, sensing the wind toss and blow your hair, and feeling-for just one moment-that responsibilities have no power over you. 

Below is a wedding couple in traditional kimono during cherry blossom season.

I also like the highly seasonal cherry blossom flavor. It it sweet and floral but so faint - it could never be an An american flavor because it is only a hint of a taste (just like the real smell of cherry blossoms). Somehow the natural faintness of the flavor makes it better, I think. Cherry blossom scents and flavors in America are smothering by comparison.

Below is a tree with a sign that says "mother of cherry trees." It is, perhaps, not the oldest cherry tree, but it is still a very old one. You can see the green leaves on this tree because the flowers have bloomed and fallen and the new leaves are growing for the new year.

Fish are Food, Not Friends 魚

Look 0.0

I think they are dead...

On the note of octopus, it is relatively inexpensive in the supermarket.

Even so, I have not had the guts to fix it for dinner. How do you cook octopus? 

To answer that question-hopefully-I have a new bilingual (English-Japanese) cookbook, and I really want to work through it like Julie and Julia but today is not that day.

Here is raw fish and squid, but other delights include: fresh fish in every shape and size and color, freeze dried fish, regular dried fish, frozen fish, crabs, lobsters, roe, krill, and clams. It is all jammed together in the market for a normal day. 

I think I need to learn more about how to gut and cook fish...

If I do it improperly, the fish will look at me with those accusatory eyes, and I don't want that.

The Fields 田

         In the spring there is already a crop that is nearly ripe for harvest (pictured above). Unfortunately, I do not know what crop that is. It is not corn or rice, and based on the price of flour in Japan, it's not wheat. Whatever it is, it's beautiful in the spring breeze. Some of these fields have already been harvested, and I imagine they will soon be replaced with a new summer crop. In Japan, land does not go to waste... after all, it is a limited commodity. 

       
  The pictures on the left are rice fields that are on the outskirts of every city in Japan. Unlike farmland in the US, Japan does not seem to be a clear line of distinction between residential areas and farmland. The two are intermingled in an unexpected, but visually appealing way. From the city center where I live, I am only a short 15 minute walk away form the newly planted fields.  

The fields are all flooded, as you can see, but that is not a natural occurrence. They are manually flooded and maintained. The flooded fields are placed in strategic locations - like the valley to the left.  After the patties are filled with water they are planted with small rice stalks, only a few inches tall. These baby rice plants have been carefully cultivated in flats (like new grass in America) inside green houses all winter in preparation for this spring planting. The flats are then placed on an industrial, rice planting machine, as you can see in this youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKj3jpJACno ).

On the left are the newly planted rice sprigs. On the right is a farmer caring for his fields with a industrial planter in the background. Some farmers get creative with their planting. Using different species of rice (which produce different colored heads) they plant a picture which becomes apparent as the plants grow and mature. I have not seen one of these yet (because it is too early in the season) but I am told that it is well worth seeing. This is a link to another blog that describes it in more detail with photos. Enjoy! (http://www.rense.com/general86/stun.htm)

Wisteria 藤

Some friends and I went to visit the Fuji flowers - which deceptively led me to believe that they were remotely near mount Fuji... Instead I discovered that Fuji is how the Japanese say wisteria. We went to visit a huge park whose sole purpose is showing off wisteria plants and other beautiful blossoms. 

         After a long walk along a river lined with colorful lanterns and floral paintings we entered the park through the West Gate-which honestly makes the park sound like something out of a fantasy novel-and proceed through the purple haze. Haze is the best word I can think of to describe that many wisteria. The smell is heavy and sweet, but not sickeningly so. The sheer quantity of flowers hanging from trellised  archways, bridges, walls, and patios made it impossible to comprehend the flowers individually, yet the minute size of the flowers means that they do not become a solid mass. It really is just a hate. The sight and smell together with the sound of running water from the lakes and ponds in the park and made me think of the feeling that I have been getting a lot in Japan and which was best described by John Denver's in Annie's Song, "you fill up my senses..."  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNOTF-znQyw). 

One of the most stunning sights in my opinion was the spectacular walls of wisteria that were built around the park, There were at least three of them in different colors. Below is a purple one that is three stories tall and at least a quarter mile long around a lake. To give you perspective of size, that is a man in white in the bottom right corner. 

Above is the tunnel of white, dozens and dozens of trees composing roof over a long walk with pure white wisteria, perfect for a wedding.

One girl was posing in front of the wisteria in a kimono with a professional photographer. 

Because the fuji gardens are so popular to visit during golden week, they are prepared for tourists to stay a very long time (Yes, look at the crowds. It was crowded.) After nightfall, all of the gardens were lit up, so that the haze of flowers looked like they were glowing.