A Sakura-Filled Easter Weekend

Since this is our last spring in Japan, I wanted to really enjoy the Sakura (cherry blossom) season.  This time of year is so beautiful in Japan, but it only lasts for about 10 days, so you have to enjoy every minute of it!  It's fun because even the Japanese celebrate this beautiful season. You might would think that because they see the cherry blossoms every year it isn't a big deal, but it very much is!  The coffee shops sell cherry blossom lattes and scones, and the weekends are packed with "hanami" picnics. "Hanami" means to "enjoy the beauty of the flowers."

This spring time was extra special because Chris is here. Usually, the ship is out every spring. But because of a schedule change, he was able to enjoy sakura season, too! You have to understand, it's great getting to see and experience fun things in Japan throughout the year, but I'm always a little sad because I feel like Chris is missing out.  So, I really appreciate the times when he is here to experience Japan with me! 

Our first outing was to the Ogi Cherry Blossom Lantern Festival.  This event has literally been on my calendar for a year.  The festival is only for one weekend in the spring and last year I didn't hear about the festival until a day after the event.  I have been waiting for it and I was thrilled when I found out Chris would be here, too! The town of Ogi is about an hour and a half away. The festival is in a park with hundreds of cherry blossom trees, but  the amazing part happens at night.  They light up  hollowed-out bamboo with candles and the whole place glows.  We wanted to get there in the early evening to see the park before the lights went out and then experience the park at night, too. This festival was definitely worth the wait. It was an amazing sight to see! Here are a few pictures from the festival...

At the park before all the sun went down...

The lake at the park lined with lanterns and cherry blossoms.

As the sun was going down, the candles were being lit.

All of the displays lit up

This is what the bamboo displays looked like... they were cut out, and then the openings were covered in rice paper and lit from the inside with candles. Amazing!

Another view of the lake and lanterns at night.

The following day was Easter.  After our church service we had a picnic at the park with our church and a Japanese congregation.  Everybody brought something to share so our plate was filled with traditional American picnic food and Japanese food... too fun! (I, of course, brought "angel eggs." This is what my family called deviled eggs when I was growing up. My mom didn't like the name, so she changed it, and it stuck!) As we sat and ate with the Japanese, Chris and I were reminiscing about our previous Easters.  We have enjoyed sunrise service on the beach in Hawaii,  two years ago we watched local Hawaiians perform a Easter hula during our worship service and this year we celebrated with our church and Japanese friends under the cherry blossom trees.  We have been so blessed to celebrate the joy of Easter in many different ways!

At our Hanami Picnic on Easter Sunday

With our wonderful friends,  John and Jessica

After the picnic, we went with John and Jessica and their three children (Molly, Jack, and Sadie) to an amazing park.  This park had so many fun things to play on and enjoy and Chris was right there in the middle of the kids.  He had a fun time, even though afterwards he did admit that he was extremely sore!  I just sat back and watched him have a blast with our friends... he is going to be a great dad!!

Getting ready to go down the "roller slide"

A view of the long roller slide... it is made up of many rods that spin you down the slide.

A huge grassy hill you could slide down with a sled... here he goes!

And he made it to the bottom!  This hill was slick!

A slide that literally goes straight down!

And finally the zip line... we couldn't leave until John and Chris had a race!

And I know I posted a ton of cherry blossom pictures last year, but I just can't help myself! Here are a few of the amazing blossoms (and other flowers) from this year!! 

I just love the parks that hang lanterns among the cherry blossoms!

The bright pink blossoms are my favorite!

More lanterns...

I don't know what these flowers are, but they looked like delicate little bells.

Happy Spring, everyone!!

Kyoto: The Traditional City of Japan

Chris and I love three day weekends!  About a week before a long weekend, we sit down and discuss if we want to sit around and relax or take a trip. Every once and awhile we go for the relaxing option, but this weekend we decide to take a trip... and are we glad we did!  We've heard Kyoto is a "must-see" city in Japan. It is known for being very traditional, complete with pagodas, temples, shrines, and geishas.

We also used this weekend to check something else off our list, and that was to ride the Shinkansen (or Japanese Bullet Train).  The bullet train goes throughout Japan and like it's name says it is extremely fast and the best part is that it is very roomy and comfortable!  We boarded the train early Saturday morning and we were off.

Our guide book that we used for the weekend had a section on walking tours, and we decided this was the best way to see Kyoto. Our first walking tour was what our guide book called the "Night Walk Through the Floating World." It was pretty incredible.  We were fortunate enough to come when snow was still in the city, I think it made everything look even better!  Our first stop was at Yasaka-jinja shrine.  It was huge and I loved seeing it at night.

Next, we headed to an area called Pontocho.  It looked like it was an area right of a movie.  It was a pedestrian-only area that is lined with restaurants and it is the best place to spot geishas!!  This was the highlight of the trip for me.  As Chris was busy trying to figure out the menus I was hunting for geishas!

During our walk through the town I did see three geishas, but I felt awkward taking pictures of them. This picture below isn't the geishas we saw, but they looked EXACTLY like this.  I loved it!

We finally settled for a place for dessert... they had tempura ice cream and it was incredible!

The next morning after we found a place for coffee, we set out for our second walk, "A Philosophical Meander."  This walk was long, but it was a beautiful sunny and chilly day.  Our first stop was at the Nanzen-ji temple.  It is one of the most favorite temples in the city.

That's us in the middle. Sorry we're tiny!

Love the snow covered city

After we left the city we walked along the Path of Philosophy and of course we found two snacks that we had to try:

Honey toast with fruit... yum!

Potornados!! Yes, that was their real name!

Then after we walked out a long road lined with fun shops we found the Ginkaku-ji Temple.  This was our favorite because the gardens were beautiful.

Because I was exhausted after the long walk, so Chris let me pick the place to eat.  I quickly found a Burger King. Now, I know you are disappointed, but we don't have one in Sasebo and right then the Whopper sounded pretty tasty (I haven't had one in a year)! Chris still had one more sight we needed to see before we headed back to the hotel... the Kyoto Tower.  Of course we had to go to the top, I must admit the views were pretty incredible. 

This is a picture of the tower being reflected on the train station... I thought it looked pretty neat.

Monday was our last day in Kyoto, but we still had two more sights we needed to check off our list.  I'm glad we saved them for the end, because they were definitely the best ones.  First we took the bus to the Golden Pavilion or Kinkaku-ji.  It is three stories and covered in gold leaf.  It was built to be retirement villa, but it was converted into a temple. 

I love the reflection in the water!

Before our train left we hurried to our last sight.  We went to the To-ji pagoda. It is the largest pagoda in Japan. We took a quick picture then headed off to catch our train!

We had an amazing three-day weekend in Kyoto.  It was so interesting to see these incredible sights in Japan.  But before I go, I have to mention our biggest disappointment of the trip... we were in the train station and what do you think I saw? A Cafe Du Monde!!! I ran to it and quickly ordered a beignet. And guess what?? They didn't have beignets! What was the purpose of having a Cafe Du Monde without beignets? I was speechless! (For my non-Louisiana friends, this is a famous cafe in New Orleans that serves these fried dough squares covered in powdered sugar called beignets and they are delicious!)

Other than that, we had an incredible time and saw some amazing sights!!

Sapporo Snow Festival

Ever since I arrived in Sasebo, I have been hearing about the amazing Sapporo Snow Festival.  So needless to say, I have been anxiously awaiting to go!  It was supposed to be my "cheer me up" trip while Chris was out on winter deployment, but his schedule got changed and he ended up being home all weekend while I was gone.  Even though he wanted to go, he was excited for me to go and just told me to take a ton of pictures!

Sapporo is in northern Japan.  It is freezing there (which, as Chris reminded me, is a good thing since they have the snow festival)! But as many of you know, I don't do well in cold weather, so I took as many layers as I could complete with long underwear, heavy socks, boots, two coats, scarves, hats, gloves and the wonderful invention of body warmers that I strategically placed all over me.  I was good to go!

This snow festival isn't just in one location... it is all over Sapporo. Each town had their own snow festival and displays. Some were bigger than others, but they were all very interesting. Many of them had ice candles and snowmen throughout the town. The first place we visited when we arrived had tunnels and caves made of ice and snow.

The next day we traveled to another small town.  We started off the morning with a tour of a chocolate factory.  I was especially looking forward to this because I knew this place made my favorite cookies in all of Japan.  They are a perfect proportion of chocolate and cookie.  We can only find them in the Tokyo airport, so we load up every time we travel through there. (Don't worry family, there is a box of the cookies coming your way.)

The workers meticulously making the yummy cookies

Of course they had a restaurant where we sampled the delicious chocolate foods such as hot chocolate, creamy fondu, and soup with mochi!!

After the tour I got to do something I have always wanted to try... glass blowing! It is much harder than you think and the language barrier only made it more difficult.  But my instructor was super patient (he had to start my glass over three times because it kept hardening on me) and funny! I think it turned out well, but I don't think I'll be changing professions any time soon!  Here's a few pictures of the process:

Laughing at my lack of glass blowing skills

Shaping the vase

Making the opening

Then that night we (my friends Amy, Joe, Colleen, and Sarah) set out to find the snow sculptures.  Boy, were we in for a surprise!  On our way we found a street filled with ice carvings.  They were stunning, especially at night with the city lights on them!

Yes, those are frozen crab, fish, flying fish, and scallops!

The row of ice carvings in the middle of the town

Then we set off to find the snow sculptures. This is what the snow festival is famous for!  These sculptures were huge and so very detailed.  They looked great during the day, but at night they were quite a sight!  They had light shows and played music.

This ocean scene was my favorite one.

Japanese castle, complete with a performing girl band!

Look at the lights!

The next day we went to the final sight... sledding!  These slides were huge and of course the lines were long, but we had to do it at least once!  Each person was given a giant inner tube and then pushed down the slippery slope! They also had a course where you were pulled around on a raft with a snow mobile.

Walking up the slide with our inner tube

Headed down the slopes!

After we played for a while, we took the bus back to town and went to the top of the Sapporo TV Tower for a view of the entire festival.  

A view from the top... you can see the city of Sapporo, the sculptures, and the amazing snow covered mountains!

And of course, no blog entry would be complete without a few pictures of the delicious food I sampled.  Sapporo is famous for chocolate, melons, ramen, and crab!  We found their famous ramen road and picked a place to eat that looked crowded (because of course that means it's good) and ordered the crab, scallop, and corn ramen.  It was amazing!!

The entrance to ramen road

Crab, scallop, and corn ramen... yum!!

The many ramen places we had to choose from

On our final night we decided to treat ourselves to a crab dinner.  So we went inside a place that we were pretty sure served crab...

I know what you're thinking: "I didn't think Stephanie knew the Japanese symbol for crab."

We sat on the floor...

 And dug right in...

My friend and her daughter ordered this and was kind enough to give me some legs

I had an amazing four days! Even though I missed Chris, I had a wonderful time with my friends and I saw some amazing things!  I love exploring different parts of this amazing country I live in!