So, I have been totally on a Japan history kick recently. Not to say I'm not always fascinated with it, because I am, it's just so remarkably interesting! But, to the point, and as I said, more on Takeda Shingen. It only seemed appropriate that during this period of studying history, our local legend had a festival held in his honour. Takeda Shingen lived during the era of 'warring states' also called the Sengoku period and is cool to me because his capital was in Kofu where consequently the festival was held. (It's also the name of my beloved fish who is a year old to me this weekend!) He lived a good life of a feudal lord and staked claims to much of the surrounding land and formed good alliances but died youngish, at 48, well before his campaigning was over but after his death the Takeda clan kinda went downhill and was taken over by Tokugawa Ieyasu soon after. But focusing on the great Takeda Shingen, he was awesome! He was known for his fair laws, and revolutionary damming system and being an awesome strategical leader and now he is famous for his parade of 1500 samurai representing the various clans that were allied with him and the awesome festival Nikki and I went to that happened every April. Except, it didn't happen last year because of the earthquake, which made this one even more awesome! So here we were as sakura season descended upon Kofu castle, surrounded by a warm breeze, delicious festival food, and many attractive guys dressed up as feudal Japan soldiers; totally my idea of a good time! And they thought so too for spirits were high and if they spotted my with my camera they made great efforts to elaborately pose much to my pleasure! It was great fun! And this was all within the castle grounds before the actual parade had begun in which the soldiers marched before an actor playing Takeda and they all had a little party which we simple folk could only view from a giant TV. So we headed back to the castle, I flaked out in the grass and watched the sakura, had a sword fight with Chelsea in our matching Shingen hats and ate delicious chicken with Nikki before heading home with those two and Sheen for delicious kamikatsu in Otsuki!
The next day was Sunday, and Nikki's last day... We debated what to do for it for some time and eventually decided to go to the wonderful place that Sheena had told me about in Mishima. It was a gorgeous shrine filled with sakura and we spent well over an hour enjoying it. Or more I inspected every flower for the perfect blossom while dragging Nikki about to hold my camera and food, but it was great fun and made me realize how much I'd miss having her around putting up with me. But we did have a wonderful town and caught the tail end of a wedding and watched some young shrine priestesses preforming their duties. It was a beautiful place.
So a fabulous spring break came to an end. I took Nikki to the train and said good bye to a loved one for a second time in just over a month... it is always so difficult. But just as I pulled back into my parking spot at the crack of dawn I noticed something that lifted my spirits; the sakura by my house had blossomed for the first time that year. It made me smile as I stumbled back to bed for an hour of sleep before going back to school, but more on that later.
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