One day we went to my favourite shrine in Fujiyoshida. The one with the horses, koi pond and little red bridge and there was this absolutely beautiful wisteria in bloom. We hit it at the perfect time of day so the sun was streaming through the trees and the day finally felt warm and I sat on the little red bridge and fed the fish. it was wonderful.
Another time we went to Kawaguchiko to this adorable cafe that featured Dayan the cat. Dayan is a character from a cute book series called Wachifield designed by a talented Japanese artist and absolutely everything there was Dayan themed! We loved it sooooo much.
On the last day we celebrated with samurai and flower. I being the samurai and the famous Fujizakura being the flowers. I've been doing iaido for about eight months now and it was time for my first testing. I'd been working super hard and was reward by a trip to the training centre in Kofu where I'd seen Kevin test for his brown belt in judo. Now it was my turn. In Japan they call it ikyu though which means I'm the step below black belt. So Kato sensei, my lovely iaido teacher helped me out and talked me through my nerves until I was ready and then I went to kick butt and passed!
After we went with Kevin to Saizeriya to celebrate with Japanese Italian food and finally headed home to see the flower. Unfortunately it had clouded over a bit so we couldn't see Fuji but the flowers were still pretty awesome. Especially as the past two springs I've been in Japan the flowers didn't have a chance to bloom because of crazy weather and earthquakes and stuff. In English they're called pink moss because they grow close to the earth so from above it looks like grass of pinks. it was very beautiful and smelled fantastic.
Then it was home for dinner, a very brief sleep and I drove Nikki to the train station so she could head to the airport. I'll leave it at that as I'm horrible with good byes...
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