In which flowers bloom and kites fly

And then it was golden week again and four days stretched out before me. The first day was spent resting from my exhausting first weekend and it didn't help that it had rained all day so it was relaxing cool day curled up at home. Day Two found me on my favourite 5:40 train to Tokyo with Sheena and Kasia to go see some flowers on a little day tour. It was a pretty awesome day when the downpour subsided and we had a lovely time with azaleas, wisteria (the amazing purple flowers that look like they belong in a magical realm) and these brilliant blue flowers that cascaded over a green hill with little spots of orange poppies and a ladybug! The wisteria was definitely the highlight of the day and the smell, of words cannot capture the smell, I wanted to bottle it up and lose myself in it on future warm afternoons. The flowers hung from bridges and trees in yellows, pinks and the purple. The oldest of the trees were something like 165 years old!

 

 

 

 

It was actually an early night and we headed back to Otsuki with the sun to get some sleep before the next day's adventure. I must point out that my usually poor luck cleared twice for golden week, once for the sakura, and a second time because the only fully clear day we had was the day we went to Hamamatsu in Shizuoka to watch the kites fly for children's day! If it had been raining like it has done every other day, it would have been cancelled... As it was we got up early to a brilliant blue sky and Mt. Fuji looking magnificent as I took of to the Yosh to pick up Sheena, Mershon and Kasia and we all went south for three hours to the beach to watch these 173 giant kites (they were like the size of my bedroom!) soar in the sky and battle each other and occasionally fall from the heavens in defeat. It was brilliant! I was standing in the middle of this field listening to the cheers of the kite fliers, the chants, whistles, and drums, the warm breeze and the distant surf on the sand. After we set up a tarp on the grass and watched some guys untangle a kite and ate festival food in the shade before climbing about the sand dunes by the oceans and feasting eyes on the kites above. Pretty fantastic day!

Oh the whole reason for the kite festival was because some lord in the area a few hundred years ago flew a flag in honour of his first born son and now it's customary on children's day to do such. In the evening, we headed into downtown for Italian food and to watch the lit up floats in city streets as the sun set. The music and lights were pretty cool. Before the crowds all headed home we beat them to it and drove the three hours back to Yamanashi in time to see the full moon high above Fuji on a glistening night so Mershon and I wandered up to the pagoda at midnight to snap some shots before heading home to bed.

The rain returned on Sunday so it was another day of rest for it on and off stormed all day and then Monday it was back to school. Rainy season is coming soon so not many travel plans are in the future until late June. Oh and in early July I'm taking a Japanese test which should be really hard... then a visit to Canada for summer holidays!