Sadou, and Kiyosu jo with Ayuko!!

~*~ Right now the wifi at home is broken, and it only works on my phone... Therefore, pictures for this post will be uploaded when I go to school tomorrow, so please be patient!! Sorry! ~*~


Saturday, April 26

It was kind of freaking me out that Yuko still hadn't said anything about the bike or scolded me... So I ended up bringing it up at breakfast.

And btw guess what we had for breakfast?? Not cereal!! We had salad and toast! Whoaaaa. 

Hisashiburi, toast!

 

Yuko asked me what time I was leaving for the sadou party and then made other small talk. Why wasn't she bringing up the bike? So I told her about how I'd brought the bike home yesterday and what a great bike it was and how well it worked and stuff.

And she said she knew, Kanno had told her. And then she said "nande oshiete" or something like that, so I thought she was saying "what did she tell you?" Because "nani" or "nan" is "what", so I hesitated, thinking of how to say what Kanno had told me, but then Yuko said, kind of angrily, in English:

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Oh, that's what it meant...

 

So I told her about how I'd thought they'd wanted me to take care of it on my own, so that's what I'd done and hadn't wanted to involve them (since they'd made it clear they weren't helping me). And she just kept telling me I should have told them, that's what they'd wanted, and on and on. And then she was like "that was my favorite bike", which I knew was a load of bs because her first suggestion after I got run over was for me to dump that bike and buy them a new bike. 

So Chris was right. I was going to get scolded. It's weird she held all her anger in until I brought it up, though. I wonder if I never had...

So I apologized and she stopped scolding me after that. Miyabi had just been sitting there awkwardly the whole time, I felt bad. Even though she couldn't understand the English parts, she could still tell what was going on.

 

Yuko came into my room as I was getting ready and said now I had to go pay to have the other bike, "her favorite", thrown away. I was like, "don't you want to keep it? I mean, it works fine"

And she said she did, but she thought it was dangerous to ride.

I told her I've been riding it every day! I mean, I even speed biked on it one day when I was late and it worked perfectly.

So she said she'd talk to her husband and then she said I was going to have to "make up Japanese words" to tell him what I'd done with the bike, because "that would make him happy".

Okaaayyy. 

So great, something else to look forward to when I get home today. I said I'd probably be home around 5 and then I headed out.

 

It was cool going to Nanzan on a Saturday. It made it feel more like a college campus. Usually, it feels like a high school because everyone has the same class times and same breaks, but now there were older people, probably alumni, strolling around and a young couple with a kid playing in the green area. It was nice.

The sadou party was in the tatami room, where I have my sadou class. I was worried because I'd gotten there about 20 minutes late, but I walked in and there were these girls dressed in suits at a table at the entrance. They were really nice and spoke in broken English when I didn't understand what they said. It turned out that because I didn't have a ticket, I had to buy one. Then they showed me in to half of the the tatami room. The doors to the second half were closed and the entryway, which is normally all open, had a traditional Japanese screen divider thing closing off half of it.

So I sat in there in seiza position, waiting. There were two older ladies in there too, admiring a wall scroll. Then they opened the second half of the room and I saw a whole bunch of people (some men too!) sitting around in tea ceremony position. Then they got up and filed out. That's when I realized it was set up so we could arrive at any time we wanted from 10 to 3 and then you went in to do the tea ceremony in groups. They let the two ladies and me go in next. I was the only foreigner there, so I was happy my group was small in case I messed up! Also, everyone in the last group had been dressed up, as were the ladies in my group, so I was happy I wore a skirt and nice shirt today!

There was a girl in a suit already sitting in the first position, I guess to show us what to do. Then two other girls came in, wearing kimonos. They must all be part of the sadou club. One girl in a kimono was the first host, who talked to us and brought in the sweets, and the other girl in the kimono was the second host, who made the tea.

 

The girl in the kimono talked to us a lot, very little of which I understood, and the we had to bow. Then she brought in the okashi. They were beautiful!! They looked just like iris flowers. Obviously I couldn't take a picture because this was a legitimate tea ceremony, but I found this image online that looks exactly the same, although they didn't have the green leafy parts.

The first girl said the stuff we'd learned in class. I was happy she was in front of me just to give me a refresher as to what that was. So then I said it perfectly. And yeah, the old ladies had no idea what they were doing, haha. I'd been sure they knew tea ceremony like the backs of their hands, but they really didn't! They just kind of mumbled something close to what the girl had said and then ate their sweets lol.

The iris okashi had anko inside! Mmmmm! It was really good, but I was still getting over my sickness I guess because I wasn't too hungry, so it was a little hard to finish.

 

Then we got tea! My feet were burning at this point! I'd assumed sitting in seiza for a long time would hurt my knees most, but my feet were prickling so much, they felt like they were on fire! All my body weight on top of them for the past 20 minutes had not been okay. So I sort of sneakily pushed them to the side while I drank my tea, but I'm pretty sure everyone noticed. Ah well, playing the gaijin card.

But hey, I knew how to say all the stuff! The girl in front is only supposed to say two things, to the person to the left and to the host, because she doesn't have anyone on her right. But everyone else, if they aren't the last person, is supposed to say three things, to the left, the right, and the host.

So I said "mo ippuku ikaga desu ka," to the first girl, because she was to my right, but she didn't respond!! Whaaat? Do they not teach that in tea ceremony club? So then I just continued, saying the stuff to the lady to my left and to the host and then drank my tea. 

The lady next to me sort of said it. And the last lady, who was older, just didn't say anything haha.

 

After we'd all finished tea and they cleared our cups, we watched while the girl in the kimono finished cleaning up. She was moving so slowly I wanted to scream! My legs hurrrtttt. T-T 

But she finally finished and after they thanked us and she told us to be careful as we left, we all bowed and we were free to leave. They opened up the sliding doors between rooms and I saw the waiting room area was full. Wow! I really got there at the right time. I could only imagine how much pain my legs would be in if I had a full room and had to wait for all those people to finish receiving their tea and then drinking it!

Kondo sensei was part of the next group! She saw me and was like, "oh! Keito!" And asked me if it was "oishikatta" (delicious) lol. I told her it was.

 

Then the girl in the kimono who had been our main host, the one who talked to us, walked us out. We thanked her and then the old ladies said I was really "jouzu." Awww!! I thanked them and then explained to them and the girl that I was taking a tea ceremony class right now, actually in this very room. They thought that was awesome.

So yeah, it wasn't a party like I thought, but it was still cool! It was fun getting the opportunity to do an actual tea ceremony after I've been practicing for one for so long!

 

Because it was barely 11, and now I had a ton of free time, I headed to J building to write my blog until 1:20 when I left to meet Ayuko at Oasis 21.

 

Ayuko was waiting for me at Starbucks. We caught up while she finished up her lunch. She had done sadou this morning as well! She's taking sadou lessons and learning to make okashi! I'm super jealous! But she told me she has to sit in seiza for 2-3 hours!!! Ahhh, I could never do that, haha.

 

I got on the Oasis 21 wifi to look up a place in Sakae to do purikura, because that was something we wanted to do together before I head back to America! We ended up finding the same place where I went with Rafa, Esteban, and Dylan way back in February, where if you're in your school uniform and it's after dark, you're not allowed in. And I ended up choosing the same machine, haha!

 

It was so much fun, as always!! Purikura is one of the things I will miss the most! Ayuko said you get way longer to decorate now than when she was in middle school and high school. There were even improvements since I'd come last in February! There was a new machine now (the one Minju, Emma, and I had used at Sushiro actually), and on this machine, there was a new "sepia" setting. Gosh, purikura is constantly getting better and better.

 

Although, there's still some bugs. Like if you wear green.

I learned that today...

Never wear green when you do purikura!!!

 

Because it's a green screen. Duh!! I should have realized haha. Yeah...

 

Damn, my green skirt looks so cute now, huh?

 

 

My favorite!! I decorated it :D

 

 

 

Yay, I love purikura!! 

 

Next, we went back to the station to take the subway to Nagoya and the JR to Kiyosu, since it was getting late and Kiyosu jo closed at 4:30.

 

At Kiyosu, I showed Ayuko the way I'd walked to get to Kiyosu jo last time. On the way, we talked a lot about Tech and our mutual friends, which was nice because I've been starting to really miss home and my friends lately! So it's nice hanging out with Ayuko who reminds me of home. ^^

 

Pretty daisies we saw on the way

This was Ayuko's first time in Kiyosu!! Whoa! We went up the overpass to cross the busy street before the castle, and marveled great view you can get of the castle up there. 

 

 

It wasn't as pretty as when it was surrounded by all the pink sakura, but it's still gorgeous!

 

We entered in and Ayuko bought me a ticket. She's so sweet!! We took off out shoes and put on these slippers that kept falling off my feet! First we looked at an exhibit that told about the history of the castle. We learned it was rebuilt in 1989, which is why it looked so new inside! Ayuko translated all the important stuff for me. I'm so jealous of the fact that she's bilingual!

Then we went upstairs where there were more exhibits, like replicas of the samurai armor! There was a floor above that playing a movie. That floor had a bunch of fun quiz questions you could answer with fun facts about Kiyosu and what Obu Nobunaga introduced to Japan. I learned he introduced buttons and konpeito (the cute little candies I like!) Ayuko told me about this historical comedy movie she likes, part of which is filmed at Kiyosu jo! There was a little section about that movie, too.

 

And then the best part for last, the balcony!! There were huge golden dragon fish things that Nagoya is known for up there and you could touch them! There was a also a drum you could hit and it showed you how to stand and hit it like they did back then. And then we walked around the balcony.

 

 

The view was amazing!! I could see Nagoya station in the distance. We also saw the Asahi factory, which looks like a bunch of beer cans. I told Ayuko about how on the way yesterday with Father, we had driven past the Kirin beer factory and it reeked of beer! Ayuko told me that the people of Kiyosu jo really pushed to have the castle rebuilt because they wanted to keep up the traditional parts of their city.

 

See the Asahi factory? That smudge is something on my camera...

Ayuko playing the drum

Me playing the drum

Entrance and the rock garden (those pebbles were hard to walk in!)

Cool carp streamers over the river

 

When we got back to the main floor, they had already closed up the castle, so we grabbed our shoes and headed out another exit.

Ayuko and I took a picture on the bridge and then I wanted to go look at the carp streamers. A yuki told me they're called "koinobori." They were so pretty!! We took a bunch of pictures of them!

 

All over the ground were brown crunchy things that Ayuko told me were dead sakura petals. I've been seeing those all over, it all makes sense now! Wow, they look so ugly when they're dead! 

 

This is such a gorgeous picture!

Sakura flower with dead sakura petals

Koinobori over Kiyosu jo!

Oote Bridge

Ayuko and me in the face holes! I'm the woman, haha

Then we headed back to the station. We passed by so many factories and kept commenting on how ugly they look in such a nice city! Although one smelled really good, like Spearmint. Maybe a gum factory? We also passed a shrine near the castle that was a shrine for help with studies. Just like the one we saw in Inuyama!

 

At the station, we took a JR home. I got off at Ichinomiya while Ayuko continued on to Gifu. I invited her to my closing ceremony, so hopefully we will see each other again there!

 

No one was home when I got home. So I went to my room to do my Hanga. I'd gotten it out of my locker after the sadou thing today, so I could finish it up this weekend. Miya and Yuko came home then, so Miya came to my room to play.

She thought my Hanga was awesome!! I taught her how you do Hanga and how it's used to make pictures. I showed her my Rilakkuma print as well as my ink covered Rilakkuma block. Then she sat there and held all the wood shavings I made as I finished carving my block. Even when I messed up, she kept saying "sugoi!" It was cute!!

 

Then we played this game on top of my Hanga knife box called "osumou" where we each had a little folded piece of origami that we stood up on the box. Then we both hit the box over and over and whoever's paper fell first, lost. It was fun!

 

While we were doing this, Ken got home and it was time for dinner, so we went into the kitchen.

And guess what was at our places when we arrived??

MISOKATSU!!!!! I was so excited! I really wish Yuko had said she was making it and then I could have watched her. 

But it looked just like it does at school, so I was really excited and touched they had made it since I'd mentioned a while back that it was my favorite food. And they had miso sauce too!! So I dug in.

 

The miso sauce was great! It tasted just like the one at school. The katsu, not so much... Actually, it was really bad. Like the misokatsu at Yabaton, it was filled with huge chunks of fat I couldn't eat. I had to surreptitiously spit them out into my napkin when I was wiping my face. I noticed Miya doing the same thing.

Yuko and Ken just ate the fat I guess?

But yeah, it made me want to gag because there was less meat than fat, so it wasn't edible.

 

After that disaster, I went back to my room. I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep, but I had to wait for everyone to shower. So I worked on homework.

Then Yuko came in and asked me to come talk with Ken now. Miya was on the couch in the living room watching tv and Ken was sitting at the kitchen table. So I went in to sit at the table with him.

Then Yuko said she'd come and be the translator, so she closed the door between the living room and kitchen and sat with Ken on his side. So it was the two of them facing the one of me. Talk about intimidating.

So I told Ken in Japanese how I'd gotten the bike from Chris, gotten a friend to help me being it here, and now it was outside for them to go look at. And I told him it was a really nice bike. And I said I'd brought the old bike inside, so it was right outside the door, like Yuko had asked. 

He was still sitting there staring at me, so I turned to Yuko and asked it I was supposed to say anything else and she told me to apologize. 

So I did.

Then Ken launched into this explanation about how I should have told them, blah blah blah, everything Yuko already said, but at least he was nice and acknowledged the fact that I wasn't hurt and now they had a new bike so everything was good.

Neither of them thanked me for going and getting them a new $140 bike.

 

So I was about to get up and leave when Yuko said "that bike was given to me by my father" (oh gosh, I knew it was old! That means I've been riding around a probs around 20 year old bike!) and they were like "but we've decided it's too dangerous to ride, so we don't want to keep it. Now you have to go to the konbini and buy an 800 yen sticker to throw it out as well as pay to have the new bike registered"

Just, just, just, I can't...

I'm so happy it's only three more weeks with these people and then I never have to see them again!!!

 

So yeah, I'm going to stop complaining about them now because I don't want to fill my blog with crap about how much I hate them and they're ruining my experience. No, this supposed to be a fun, positive blog and I'd like to keep it that way! ^^ ne?

 

Inuyama Matsuri with Ayuko, Emma, Mami!!!

Sunday, April 6

Today everyone left at 7 am to go to Handaa. I woke up at 7:30 to get ready for church, and I saw Yuko had left me an AMAZING breakfast!!! My two favorite things: bananas and chocolate chip melon pan! And I love peach juice :P

At church, I ran into Milayla and her mom. Her mom told me to give her my email next time. I would have liked to have talked to them longer, but I had to run because I was meeting everyone at Inuyama station at 11.

I went over quickly to give Father some chocolate and chocolate covered praline clusters as well as a note I'd written in Japanese and English thanking him for Friday. He just said thanks real quick, but later I got an email from him thanking me again and saying he really enjoyed it! :)

Then I rushed home, finished getting ready, grabbed my breakfast and rushed to the station.

It was a long ride to Inuyama, but I got there about 15 minutes before 11. When I exited the gate, I saw Mami and went over to say hi. It turned out Ayuko was there already as well! Japanese people are always so prompt. :)

While we waited for Emma, we talked about the earthquake last night. I'd completely forgotten about it!! But Ayuko and Mami had felt it too, so it had been real! I found out later that it apparently hit in Gifu.

Then Emma showed up and I told everyone the story of last night. This morning I had really bad bruises covering my legs and thighs from fence hopping last night, lol.

Then we headed out to the matsuri!

Outside the station

The matsuri! There were so, so many people!

We saw a turtle catching game!

Cute yatai!

One of the small floats by the huge building we thought was probably where the floats are housed

One of the humungo floats!

There were soooooo many people! Everyone was literally just standing in the street because you couldn't move. We were squished like sardines like how I am on the way to school every morning!

Carrying the float we saw

Cute kids on the back all dressed up in traditional clothes

Beautiful float with flowers and mochi

Ayuko, Mami, me, and Emma in front of one of the floats

Mami and me!

Then we walked a different way than the floats were going so there would be less people. We came upon a school filled with sakura! It was beautiful.

Sakura all down the road next to the school

Sakura at the entrance to the school

We kept walking down the street towards Inuyama castle.

See the castle?? OuO

Cute kids in kimonos on the shoulders of their dads, who are wearing happi because they are festival volunteers

More giant floats!

And we arrived at the main festival area at the base of the castle.

So many floats!

All the food stands with the castle behind them

Us with the floats

And us with the food and the castle

Cool float shaped like a ship exiting the shrine

Close up of the ship float

One of the huge floats was wheeled into the shrine

Going in

Then the other huge floats started to be carried in. There were so many people trying to take pictures, that we decided to escape.

I wanted to go up to the castle, so we did that.

The way up to the castle had a bunch of mini shrines. We found a place that sold fortunes based on your name. And believe it or not, we all found our names! Everyone was really shocked there was a "keito", but I mean, it is an actual Japanese word (it means wool)!

See Keito? It's in the second row, fourth from the right

Because she's a sweetheart, Ayuko bought us all a fortune of our name. I picked one of the Keito ones and I ended up with good luck!

The shrine

If you look closely under the sakura tree in this picture (against the dark wood roof of the shrine), you can see sakura petals falling!

And more petals in the upper right corner

And even more!

It was so pretty!! One even landed in my hair, so I made everyone take a picture, haha!

The shrine was like a mini replica of Fushimi Inari.

The inari (fox) statue at the shrine

 

My favorite thing were the ema because they were pink and heart shaped!! Ahh, I really wanted one.

One of them that I didn't take a picture of, said the girl wanted a hot guy, haha!

So cute!!

Me with the fake Fushimi Inari

More cool ema

Then we found this donkey shrine. Ayuko told us people prayed to it for fertility, to have a lot of healthy children.
It was really awesome having Ayuko there, since she's fluent in both Japanese and English. So she could translate whenever Mami, or Emma and I didn't understand something.
I'm unbelievable jealous of her because of that!
Shout out to Ayuko, because she told me she reads my blog!! :)))

When we got up to the castle, it turned out we had to pay to even go in to take pictures of it. But Ayuko and Mami bought tickets for Emma and me! They're the best. :)

The castle was gorgeous with all the sakura!

Love this picture!

When Mami I think it was, took this picture for me, this guy standing next to me made a joke, pretending to put his arm around me and be in the picture too. I accidentally kind of made a face, and one of the ladies that was in his group saw and apologized. I felt really bad!

And this one!

And this oneeee!!

We had been planning on going into the castle, but the line was horrendous. It wrapped all around the little sitting area around the castle, so we decided it wasn't worth the wait.
We walked over to see the view instead.

So pretty!

"Welcome To Inuyama" Ayuko's laughing at the other side because...

It was written in Japanese on the front!

Bye castle!

Then we left and headed back to the festival. It rained on our way down. But thankfully, it was only a quick sun shower.

Pretty view up on the mountain

And after the rain, another sakura petal flew into my hair! Everyone was jealous of my awesome sakura trapping hair.

See it in my bangs?

The stairs back down to the festival area

On the way back, we saw this little shrine with a cow. Ayuko informed us it was a shrine for help with studies. Many students went to pray there to get into the school they wanted. And you could run the cow for good luck.

Ayuko also said that people volunteer to help keep the shrine clean and the cow polished. There isn't anyone who gets paid to do this.

There was one where someone wrote a prayer to get into Tokyo University!

Colorful paper cranes!

The banners say that it's a shrine for praying for studies

When we got back to the festival area, the last float was entering the shrine. There were still so many people around, so we went back up the path to Inuyama castle to buy some food from the stalls there.

Ugh, the charms were so expensive! 1000 yen for that cute pink one :(

Kakigori stall. I liked the sakura over it.

When I'd been with my new friends from Coffee Hour in Tsurumai Koen last Wednesday, I'd inquired about the egg between crackers everyone was eating. They'd told me it was called tamasen and I should try it sometime! 

So that sometime turned out to be today. I told Mami and Ayuko about how I was interested in trying it, so we all decided to go to a tamasen booth!

Tamasen turned out to be egg (tamago) between two crackers, called senbei. Hence the name tamasen. This booth was making the tamasen with yakisoba too! And the guy didn't fold the senbei like a sandwhich like I'd seen it the other time, but apparently this made it easier to eat because the egg didn't drip as much.

The guy's making the eggs heart shaped!!

My tamasen!

Mmmmmm!

Yay, tamasen!

Hole crap, it was delicious!! So, so amazing! The senbei was ebisen, so it was shrimp flavored! Oishii! I think it was a really good deal for 400 yen.

I'd seen a kingyo sukui (goldfish scooping) stall, just like in manga, so I knew I had to try it out!

It was only 300 yen and you could play without keeping the fish, so that's what I did.

The fish all looked pretty dead lol. Yuko told me later that it's because everyone's catching them and bumping them and everything that they're really weak usually. Miyabi won three a few years back and they all died within a week.

Kingyo sukui sign

The whole time I had Ayuko, Mami, and Emma all with their cameras (Ayuko had my camera), cheering me on and snapping my picture. I felt so famous!
I managed to catch four fish total! And every time I caught one this old lady behind me would exclaim "Ah! Jouzu ne!"(Ah, she's so good at it!)
Yuko also told me later that I was good at it! I didn't think four was very many, but I guess it must be?

Starting!

Everyone told me to go for one of the black fish. That's the one I wanted to catch, because whenever I used to play the Naruto video games, there was a part where you could do kingyo sukui and the black fish were always worth the most points because they were the fastest.

And I managed to catch one pretty quickly! It was so cute with it's giant eyes!

See? Adorable!

Then my paper net broke :(

But I was allowed two nets, so I got to keep catching! Next, everyone pointed out a HUGE, super obese gold fish and laughed, joking that I should catch that one. I said I would and boom, right after I said that I caught it! I completely freaked out! I squealed, saying "I got it!!" and all the Japanese people around me were looking and laughing and saying "Jouzu, jouzu!"
It was awesome! :)

I was shocked the huge fish hadn't broken my net! I was able to catch two more after that. A pretty gold one and a kind of speckled one. Then my second net broke, so I had to release the fish.

After the fun of goldfish scooping, we bought drinks (I got grape fanta!) and Emma got karage that she shared with us. Then Ayuko wanted donuts because she's seen a sign for them when we first walked in, so we headed back to where we had come in.
This time, we decided to go into the school yard to look around.

Looks just like a manga!

The sakura there were beautiful!

We saw all these girls dressed up in lolita clothes. They were so cute! Ayuko asked if we could take a picture with them, but then she just took a picture of the rest of us with them! She should have been in it too!

 

We found the donut place and bought a box of donuts to split. I also got this thing on a stick that Miyabi and my host parents had eaten at the doubutsuen yesterday. It had looked really good, so I asked Mami and Ayuko what it was called and they told me it's goheimochi! It's made with rice and mochi! The one they were selling here was kurumi goheimochi, so it was walnut flavored.

Then Emma and Mami got ice cream. Mami got green tea ice cream, which I love! I'm going to miss the abundance of green tea flavored things when I go back to America.

Argh, my pictures are flipping again. Anyway, we each got a donut with a different flavored sugar to put on it. Emma - cinnamon, Mami - that soy bean powder stuff we put on bread at home, me - green tea

We played rock, paper, scissors to see who got the last donut, and I won! I can't believe it! Must be all that practice I've gotten from playing literally every day with Miyabi!

When we finished eating, we walked along a street lined with little shops on the way out.It had gotten really windy and chilly, so I was happy I had my coat.

One place had a guy making art using sugar!

See the cute sugar bunny he made?

More of his creations

A little farther down we found another guy making sugar art! He was making a pikachu, which was awesome!! Btw, I had a revelation about the name "pikachu". In Japanese "pikapika" means "sparkle sparkle," like when pikachu's cheeks sparkle with electricity and "chu" is what a mouse says, and pikachu is an electric mouse. So that's why he's called "pikachu"! OMG, right??

 

When he'd done, he hangs them upside down to dry.

There were these totally awesome floats with a ton of lanterns too! They are lit up at night. The guys were attaching all the lanterns to get the floats ready for tonight!

 

The volunteer guys are so colorful!

I really wanted to stay until after dark to see them lit up! Ah well. Minju did, because she went too (I think Saturday), and here's the picture she took!

So pretty!

Anyway, then a little mini parade came through like the one I'd witnessed at Shinsoji Temple in Tokyo.

Then Mami bought some of those little bread things that are in cartoon character shapes. She gave us each one and I got a Doraemon!

Also everyone took my picture here because of all the pink, haha

Ayuko saw this game like pinball she wanted to play. She let us each have a turn as well. We had to fling the balls and then they could land in little holes. If we got balls in all the holes in a line, we got a prize! We came so close to making two different lines, but we ended up with nothing. But we got a consolation prize!

Ayuko trying to do it!

Ayuko's not happy with her consolation prize...

Cute heart shaped waffles on a stick covered in chocolate and sprinkles!

Mami saw this place where you could be a ninja and try throwing shuriken! She and I freaked out because it was like real life Naruto, haha!

Everyone got one free shuriken throw. Sweet!

Imma ninja!

At least I hit the wall beside the target instead of the floor like Emma and Ayuko, haha!

And then we all headed out. It was sad to leave, but we all were going home for dinner.

It says "Inuyama Matsuri"

Mami and I rode back together. We talked all about movies and television shows we like, both Japanese and American. Then I got off at Nagoya. I stupidly forgot my glove on the train, but Mami texted me later that she had picked it up for me! She's so sweet!

I had decided I wanted to stop at Kiyosujo on the way home. Ayuko and I are still going to go sometime, but I wanted to see it with the sakura, because I can see them surrounding it from the train window every day, and I really wanted to get a picture up close.
So I rode the JR to Kiyosu, which is on my route! Then I asked the station master how far it was on foot and he told me 15 minutes! I stopped at a Circle K on the way to make sure I was heading the right direction and they told me it was another 15 minutes from there. Yeah, it took me like 8.
I wasn't sure I was going the right way when I got to this busy road, but I saw a bunch of sakura on the other side of it, so I decided I'd go check out what they were. So I walked up onto the walking overpass and boom, I saw the castle. It was an amazing view of it!

Sign advertising a sakura matsuri

To get to the castle, you had to walk through a tunnel of sakura! Kirei!!

And all these cute pink lanterns were lining the sides of the tunnel

There were food stalls too. I was surprised there weren't many people at all and Yuko and Ken were too when I told them later.

And there's the red bridge I always see from the train!

The castle's at the other end of the bridge

I liked how both the JR and the Shinkansen were passing at the same time!

Pretty river with the reflections of the sakura

The castle was closed for the day already. Maybe that's why there were so few people.

So many sakura petals in the river!

And then they lit the lanterns because it was getting dark

After that, I headed home. Everyone had just started eating dinner because it was a few minutes after 7. We had burritos! Yum! And they let me have three burritos, too, which was nice because I was starving even though I ate so much today!

I talked a lot about my day and Yuko said they'd seen some of the Inuyama matsuri on tv today! Cool!