I have allergies. I have always had allergies. When I was younger, we apparently switched pediatricians because my first one thought I was too young for allergies when I clearly had allergies. They are just a part of my life. As anyone who has met me knows, their affect upon me tends to wane and wax. When they are weak, they are nearly non-existent. However, when they are strong, I turn into the most disgustingly-amazing sight to be seen: a perpetual motion snot machine. It flows...it goes...it never stops, but thankfully, it blows...when I'm not in Japan.
Away in the west, there exists little to no qualm of forcing out the congested contents of ones nasal passageways into a waiting bit of cloth. That is not the case in Japan. In Japan, blowing your nose in public is considered quite rude. What do they do instead? They sniff. And sniff. And I try really hard to sniff, but that leads to problems. Namely, I get so backed up that I start to drip. I can't help it, I'm like a faucet that's mostly turned off. And just like that drip, nothing is more constant, consistent, or annoying. I once went through half a box of tissues in a single day of work, and my nose looked so bad that one of my last students of the day asked why it was red. It was a younger kid student, so when someone whose English is roughly equivalent to my Japanese walks up to me and finds a way to ask why my nose has changed to the hue and texture of a tomato that met up with a shredder, it's pretty noticeable.
But, overall, that's about the only thing that I can really complain about. I'm comfortable in my work. I've figured out how to be an adult human being over here--albeit one with a vocabulary matching the toys in the, "young child" aisle. In short, I own this job...mostly. I still have a lot to learn and a ton to improve on. I think that my new goal is to eventually teach a lesson that I'm happy with, a goal that I'm afraid might be too lofty for me to ever achieve. But we'll see.
Enough about me, onto Japan. So, Spring has officially come (yay). With spring come the cherry blossoms. Now, having spent the vast majority of my life in either Portland or Salem, cherry blossoms (or, 'sakura') are nothing new to me visually. To be honest, while I do find them beautiful, they've always been sort of background to the rest of the visual vibrancy that is spring in the Willamette valley. Over here, however, I've started to notice them more. Maybe it's due to the fact that they are a familiar facet of the season, or maybe it's because the colors over here seem less vibrant and more...concrete. Regardless, the sakura season has begun, and with the blooming of the flowers come the ohana festivals. 'Hana' is the Japanese word for flower, while the o- prefix indicates an honored or important tradition (tea, sushi, and many other traditional Japanese cultural items have the same prefix).
In the US, when we think of traditional festivals we tend to think of something quaint, with a kind of reverence. Ohana festivals, therefore, will definitely disappoint, at least from my understanding. The ohana festival takes place within small to large groups of people who have an ohana party together. This involves having a picnic underneath the branches of the trees and enjoying the view. However, as anyone who has ever watched grass grow knows, watching buds bloom can lack a certain amount of pizazz after, say, the first few minutes. So, to lighten up the mood, many people bring alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol. In a country where a good portion of the adult population drinks a staggering amount of alcohol at times, things can get a little crazy. How crazy? Well, this is all hearsay from co-workers, but apparently it is not uncommon for drunk people to begin climbing the trees to get a closer look. Now, I have no problem with climbing trees, but I have heard that it can quite ruin the atmosphere.
Recently, I have been trying some new foods. One of the most interesting new flavors is sakura. That's right, you can have cherry blossom flavored things. And they are delicious. They tend to be very sweet, but with a very mellow flavor, sort of like a candied rose hip. The other food that I found particularly enjoyable was a tempura dish that I had the other evening. The chef had sliced corn off of the cob, and then fried it. The entire ensemble was presented with a bowl of matcha salt (green tea powder mixed with salt). It tasted quite good, although the corn was a bit too over powering to taste the green tea. At the same meal, though I did not partake, someone ordered a food whose Japanese name escapes me at the moment, though it translates as, "soft bone". What it amounted to was fried chicken cartilage. That's right, a bit of the chicken that no one in the US would touch unless truly desperate is an appetizer over here. I was told that it was quite good. Anyway, that's it for my adventures. Now, time for pictures.
 |
| Sakura ho! |
 |
| More Sakura |
 |
| The sky was absolutely gorgeous on my walk today. |
I will say this about smog: it can lead to some rather nifty pictures. It's a bit hard to see in this photo, but basically there are two mountain layers barely visible through the haze. Do I wish that I could actually see the mountain? Yes, but today wasn't the clearest of days. On a clear day, though...
I can see Fuji-san. Sadly, this picture was taken at the station on a work day, so I didn't have time to run out to the fields for a better picture. Isn't it quite a sight, though? I'm hoping for an eventual day where it just pops out and I have time to see it. Anyway, a couple more pictures.
 |
| Ueno park. |
You can see the first of the flowers starting to bloom at Ueno park, which should give an idea as to how it will look when they are all bloomed. Note the cordoned off areas to both sides specifically for picnics.
 |
| Another season, another view. |
And this time I got the lighting much better than the winter addition. I don't know what it is about this view that just captivates me, but I keep on coming back. True, nothing has been quite as fantastic as that first shot way back in October, but I'd argue that this one is a nice second.
I'll wrap it up with a couple of pictures of a Tokyo sunset. I have many more pictures, but these were (in my opinion) some of the best of the bunch, although I might add more later. Anyway, this has been another adventure in the austentatious. If you liked it, tell your friends; if you hated it, tell your enemies; and if you didn't care either way, then tell everyone. Good night.
