Spring

The Cherry blossoms have started to bloom. But the weather turned cold again. We actually had some sleet yesterday. We decided to try and take our annual picnic to view the cherry blossoms but we only lasted 30 minutes. It was too cold and the wind was blowing too hard. Violet still enjoyed our time at the playground and we enjoyed our little picnic dinner.

Video: Sakura Memories

The sakura (cherry blossoms) have been gone for two weeks, but we still have the memories:

Video: Sumita 3-Year Festival

Yesterday we "went back home" to Sumita for a very special festival that is held once every three years. Gabe and I lived in Sumita for three years and often miss the wonderful friends and neighbors in that beautiful little town. We were so happy to see so many of them. I made this video from the videos and pictures we took:

Finally, Pictures from Hirosaki

Well here are the last pics from our Golden Week Vacation! This was actually May 7th! Sooo sorry that it took sooooooo long to get these on the blog! This first pic was the first day we got to Hirosaki. It took us about 4 hours to drive there and about 1 hour to find our Inn! It was really crowded and confusing! Gabe and I got a chance to use our Japanese though so that was an adventure! Above is a picture of our first Hanami picnic.
This was outside a cute little store near the Inn that we stayed at.


After we had our Hanami picnic we checked into our Inn and had a beautiful dinner served to us in our room! It was really delicious and relaxing.

After dinner Dad and Siri went to bed (unfortunately they caught a cold while they were here). It was raining but Gabe and I had to go out for night time Hanami. In Hirosaki Park they light up all the cherry trees and people sit under them and enjoy food and drinks. Though we were not as prepared as this group, who set up a nice tarp tent and BBQ pit, (we just had Gabe's raincoat!) we still had a wonderful time!




Then the next day we finally had some sunshine!
The cherry blossoms were amazing and although the park was extremely crowded it was still peaceful and surprisingly quiet. This pic below is of Mt. Iwaki. It was kind of overcast so it is hard to appreciate the size of this mountain.

We toured the castle and then stopped to rest a bit and soak it all in. Hirosaki is famous for apples and they make a delicious local apple juice, so I had to try it! Yummy!

And here is Gabe finally getting to relax after all the driving he did all week.

After that we decided to try some food from the festival vendors!
These are miniature octopi! They were being used in Takoyaki! Which is a kind of breaded and fried octopus ball. Usually you just get pieces of octopus in them but here you got one whole octopus in each ball! Although it seems strange it was delicious!

Here's Dad Craft enjoying an octopus.

And these pics were taken just before we left. The blossoms had just started to fall into the moat around the castle. We went at the perfect time. We saw the flowers in full bloom and also got to see them falling on the last day! It really was a wonderful vacation and we had so much fun with Dad and Siri! Sometimes it takes having guests to really enjoy your own home!

Golden Week Day 6

Here are some pics from Day 6 of Golden week. I can't believe this was a month ago already! Time sure does fly! We went to Tono this day to see Mark and his Samurai group at a festival. Unfortunately we were too late and missed his show but we did get to see him in in armor! It was really cool.






Next we watched some traditional dancing. This one in particular was a deer dance. They were playing drums and flutes I believe. There are some amazing similarities between the old Japanese music and dance and Native American music and dance. We really enjoyed sitting and taking it all in.

Then we walked up the mountainside and found this lookout point. It was beautiful. We could see a perfect view of Tono city. The sky was clear and blue and the cherry blossoms were just starting to bloom there. It is a little colder in Tono (which is about 45 minutes from our town) so their blossoms bloom later.

After our day in Tono we went to have dinner with our friend Mutsuko and her family at their house. She prepared Sukiyaki for us. It was so delicious!
Everyday was like a dream!