More Hanami...

This past weekend consists of hanami, hanami, and more hanami. The cherry blossoms are fully bloomed in the Utsunomiya area and it’s beautiful. The cherry blossoms last for 2 weeks so we must appreciate their beauty while they are here. On Saturday, we met up with all of the OAPs at Hachimanyama Park (八幡山公園) in Utsunomiya. Michael, Azumi-san (Michael’s co-worker) and I headed there around 11:00am and called it a night around 9:00pm. It was quite the day. In Japan, for hanami people gather in the park or wherever the sakura trees are and enjoy the day. There’s lots of food, drinks and fun, basically one big party outdoors. We sat around most of the day meeting new people and catching up with the ones we haven’t seen in awhile. On Sunday, Michael and I had our own hanami day. Michael drove me up to Honda where there were lots of sakura trees and a small park, （貸しの森公園）. The pictures that we took don’t really justify the true beauty of the sakura trees. My favorite is when the wind blows a little and it rains sakura. To finish off the weekend, we bought a grill! We’ve been looking for awhile, but came across a pretty good deal. Our first meal on the grill was American-spec hamburgers and chicken wings. We couldn’t find hamburger buns, so Michael used French bread and I used butter rolls. I never realized how much a misses a big, fat, juicy hamburger!