I have been duly chastised about my lack of posting. I've been pretty busy with work and such. The cherry blossoms have come and gone, they didn't last very long, but they were beautiful while they were blooming. I went to Okazaki, a town about 40 minutes south of Nagoya that is famous for it's cherry blossoms. One of my fellow teachers lives there so she showed us around a little. We got there in the afternoon and walked along the river until we came across this...

We were walking and noticed that a lot of people were all wearing matching costumes, and there were lots of different costumes as well. As we were pondering what exactly that meant, this video happened and semi-answered our question. Apparently there was some sort of dance concert/competition going on. After we had our fill we wandered to the other side of the river where there were lots of festival stalls and bought some food and booze, laid out a picnic blanket, and got to it. I didn't take a picture of any of the food I ate, but I wish I had. One thing I ate was especially delicious and I keep trying to ask my students what it's called, but first I have to describe it to them. They keep telling me okonomiyaki, but I'm pretty sure that's something different. So, here are some pictures from my cherry blossom viewing (hanami in Japanese).

These are pictures of the trees along the river, the castle, and the festival stalls at night. They hang lanterns in the trees and light them up when it gets dark so it's really beautiful at night too.

Golden Week is coming up really soon (hooray!). Golden Week is 5 national holidays all in a row, so the whole country goes on vacation. Elliott is coming to Nagoya and then we're traveling together. I'm pretty excited about not having to go to work for a week.