Spring Flowers and a Trip to Kochi

As I mentioned last time, I've been a slacker with regard to this blog lately. So this is part 2 of My Effort to Get Caught Up - aka 2014 spring flower viewing and a trip to Kochi.

We start with hanami - cherry blossom viewing. You may remember that last year I went to Shinjuku Gyoen, which is the more family-friendly of the major cherry blossom viewing options, since there is not alcohol allowed in the park. The other famous place for hanami is Ueno Park, which is about 133 acres, containing museums and famous shrines and all sorts of stuff. Ueno Park is also where everybody goes to sit under the cherry trees during hanami and drink lots of alcohol.  


It was not what I expected, in that it wasn't everybody picnicking on a large grassy space (like at Shinjuku Gyoen). Rather, everybody marked off a piece of concrete (or dirt), put down their picnic plastic (it looks like plastic, so I don't want to mislead people into thinking of it as a "blanket") and start eating and drinking. There is everything from people just hanging out drinking a beer to groups who've taken the time to set up a picnic area - complete with small table and tons of food and alcohol. Convenience stores (conbinis) near the park STOCK UP on beer and chuhi (not sure of the correct spelling on that one…) and set up cash registers out on the sidewalk to accommodate the huge crowds of people who are heading into Ueno Park to drink under the cherry trees. And everybody is there, from little babies being held up close to the cherry blossoms to get their pictures taken to cosplay groups like these guys:

And then there were the pets.

Yes, those are cats with bows on, hanging out on top of a sign. They are not strays. And they are surrounded by people looking up at them and saying how cute they are and taking their picture. The cats probably think they are merely receiving the worship that is due them, and they seem rather bored with it all.

We bought drinks at the conbini and then just walked around. It was very interesting, and also very pretty.  

There was also a section set up with festival stuff.

Which leads me to a tangent - Japanese put a lot of food on sticks for festivals! There's mochi on a stick:

And cucumbers on a stick: 

I also saw little fish on a stick and corn on the cob on a stick. And at a wisteria festival that I went to during Golden Week, there were other sea creatures on sticks.

I just find that interesting.  

Speaking of the wisteria festival, I finally went to Kameido Tenjin Shrine, which is in Tokyo near the Skytree and is famous for its wisteria and its traditional red bridges. I went during Golden Week, and although the festival was still happening - complete with singers in bright red suits - 

...the type of wisteria that they have there was done.  

But it was very pretty, and it looks like it is gorgeous when the wisteria is blooming, so I'll have to go earlier next year. And the azaleas were looking great!

This was just a pretty mural in the subway station on my way to the shrine.

Kochi castle

In April, I also went down to Kochi prefecture for a work trip. Kochi is the most mountainous of the Japanese prefectures and is located on Shikoku island. When a surplus of rice became a huge problem in Japan, a lot of people in Kochi put greenhouses on top of their tiny rice paddies. Kochi is now one of the largest producers of vegetables (eggplants, green peppers, etc.) in Japan. It's interesting to drive along, look at the tiny divisions of land, and see green house after green house with the occasional rice paddy thrown in.

Rice planting was just starting down there, and this nice farmer let me drive the tractor! (This one is pretty large by Japanese standards.) 

Unfortunately for him, he has some rather crooked rows in the middle of his field now, but he assured me that it was not a problem. 

Kochi is also famous for rice terraces (since the region is so mountainous). The area in this picture is about a month away from planting, but it was lovely. As you can imagine, those tiny little fields aren't terribly profitable, but there are ecological reasons to keep them going, so they are trying to promote them as a tourist attraction.

The area is also famous for citrus - specifically yuzu. Yuzu is becoming rather big in the U.S. now; I saw references to it in two of my Bon Appetit magazines in the last year. The town of Umaji has a lot of yuzu. The local JA (farmers' cooperative) representative saw that rice wasn't profitable in that area - which is in the middle of the mountains - so he spent years creating a market for yuzu and encouraging farmers to plant yuzu trees on their rice paddies. Now they have a production facility that creates juices and candies and marmalade and lotions/cosmetics, and they're developing even more products.  They have some shops that they sell to, and they sell over the internet. They even make a profit some years! It was very encouraging. In my opinion, it is exactly this sort of creativity and determination that will save Japanese agriculture.

We spent the night at a ryokan in Umaji. It was a lovely place. Pretty much everything that the ryokan served for dinner and breakfast was local - fish from the river, greens from the mountain - and came with a story. It was right before Children's Day (the one that celebrates the sons in the family), so all of the windsocks were out.

All told, it was a really interesting trip. And to top it off, the local KitKat is a citrus flavor that is quite tasty! (I think I've mentioned it before, but there are many different flavors of KitKat in Japan, with specific flavors only found in certain locations. I hear there is a KitKat store in Tokyo that has all of the flavors. I need to visit it!)

And now it's June, and the relocation season has begun. Yesterday, the Embassy had its Sayonara Party for the people who are leaving post this summer. It's hard to believe that I'm already half way through my tour, but it's true. I have a lot of traveling that I need to start getting serious about if it's going to get done before I leave. If you are planning to come visit me, start making those plans soon! There's less than two years left for visitors (unless you want to stay in a hotel when you come - because things will be chaotic and very busy when I start getting ready to leave), and it goes by fast.