The Breathtaking View

Happy Hanami!

Hanami- cherry blossom viewing time
Sakura- Japanese cherry tree/blossoms

Hanami comes but once a year, and only for one or two weekends a year. All the hype is true. Cherry blossoms in Japan are absolutely, jaw-droppingly, beautiful.

Ueno Park

I hate crowds. I would do almost anything to avoid mobs of people wandering around at their own leisurely pace. I would rather eat a bowl of cereal for dinner than go to a grocery store on a Sunday afternoon.

Hanami is Japan-crowded (which is a special, extra inconvenient form of crowded wherein you are jam packed like pickles in a jar... if every pickle was shoving with both its elbows). Doesn't matter, the blossoms are worth it.

On Saturday, we met up with some friends from the squadron at Yoyogi Park in Tokyo. Everyone and everyone that they knew had marked out a spot of the park with a big tarp. The shoes were off, the food was plentiful and the drinking was a bit heavy-handed for noon.

Sea of tarps in Yoyogi Park

We set up camp chairs, a BBQ and commenced to hanging out. That is, until a cop came over and gave us guff about our BBQ... or our camp chairs... no one really understood what his problem was, but it was definitely related to our non-Japanese-ishness because plenty of other people were BBQ-ing or camp chair-ing and he didn't give them any trouble.

Problems with the law aside, Yoyogi was beautiful, and big enough that you could probably find a spot to set up a little area for yourself. Then again, it's so big that the sheer volume of women makes for one hell of a bathroom line. I kid you not, I wanted an hour to go potty.

The next day, Blake and I went to Ueno Park, which you may remember from this post. It was a much different place that Sunday. Dream-like in its huge, white blossoms. Nightmare-like in its crowds.

Ueno had different colors of cherry blossoms. That weekend was definitely peak for the traditional, white blossoms, but there were also bright pink ones out too.

I could not stop marveling at how beautiful it was. I gaped. I gushed. I had a husband who longed for earplugs to block out my chorus of, "I can't believe this. This is so beautiful. Have you ever seen anything this amazing?!"

 

 

These pictures were taken at Ueno Park. We walked under that beautiful canopy of blossoms in the background. On the other side of them is more water, filled with giant paddle boats shaped like swans. Blake and I were content just to wander around and take in the flowers. Plus, it was rush hour for amateur swan paddle boat enthusiasts. It looked dangerous out there.

We were exhausted by the end of the weekend, but it was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen (as Blake heard me say many times). That week, a storm came in and the wind and rain blew away a lot of hanami's beauty. But that didn't stop us from venturing out to take in some of its last beautiful views.

Until next year!

Tokyo Motorcycle Show 2012

It is a tale of endless longing, soul-crushing sadness, nail-biting tension, joy, frustration, and thousands of dollars. It is the story of Blake's motorcycle.

As many of you know, Blake and I worked long and hard getting his bike on the road. Then, once he was able to ride it, I was not able to be on it with him. If you want to carry a passenger on the back of your bike here, you have to take the Experienced Riders Course with a passenger on the back of your bike. So, not only is the rider on the bike for six hours, but the passenger is too. And let me tell you, this passenger's ass hurt like crazy after six hours on the seat.

The class is run by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation for personnel with SOFA status (it's a military thing for those living overseas). It's really informative and the teachers are amazing. They have really good tips and stories. The thing about bike people is that they are their hobby's greatest advocates, as well as greatest cautionary tales. It's a twofer every time you talk to a biker.

Unfortunately, at the Tokyo Motorcycle Show, we couldn't talk to many bikers because we don't speak the same language. That isn't the only different thing, though.

At Daytona, the fashion is very in your face. Beards in your face. Leather in your face. Over-tanned women in teeny, tiny clothing in your face.

At TMS, everyone looked very mainstream. All the off-center people were across the hall at the Anime convention. Note: that is not a joke, there was seriously an Anime convention in the other wing and we saw several interesting things that day.

I'm going straight to my favorite bike of the day:

Triumph's Steve McQueen Special Edition. They are only making 1,100 of them, and while I don't think I'd be on board with Blake buying one, it sure is pretty. Steve McQueen loved bikes and cars, and rode a Triumph in The Great Escape, an amazing movie that I cannot watch ever again because it has one of the saddest movie endings ever.

This bike can also be a generator. Very handy for outdoor rec. You can plug in a cook stove or a radio, or something that would make any camping adventure better, a laptop.

Of course it wouldn't be Japan if there weren't some interesting stuff around too.

It was a very cool day. We walked around and saw everything twice. By the end of the day, I'd had my fill of motorcycles. Blake, however, can never get enough.