Spring in Japan

 Its been a really pretty Spring in Japan this year! We enjoyed the Sakura blossoms on Camp Zama and the area right around here. We didn't make any special trips to view Sakura but we felt like we were able to enjoy it plenty with the local views! These pics are all on base - right near where we live.

Starting last weekend and going through this weekend has been Golden Week in Japan. It a week when they have several national holidays in a row. Its a very big deal with business shutting down and people out and about enjoying life - no school, no work, etc... It's tricky because there are lots of festivals and fun things to see and do during Golden Week, but its also super crowded so for that reason its best to hunker down and just wait for it to end!

We decided to venture out to one of the Golden Week events - the Zama Giant Kite Festival. It is held down by the river near Camp Zama, so we rode our bikes to avoid the traffic jam. The Festival said it would go from 10am to 4pm. We couldn't tell from the online info what time the kites would fly. (Japanese website constantly frustrate us because they don't have solid information in the same way US website do)

Just to be safe, dad decided to take the whole day off work. We left our place around 9:30 and arrived at the river right around 10am. The kites were all set up but they were not yet ready to fly them. It gave us time to walk around and take some pictures. Around 11 they started to try to fly the smallest of the 4 kites. It was hit and miss - the kite went up, then came back down, try again, it broke, had a repair, try again, etc... The wind would come and go, but it wasn't super strong. So for an hour or more they tried to fly the smaller kites. Fun to watch the whole process but not super successful in flight.

A little after noon they announced that it was lunch time and everyone should now enjoy the delicious food they brought. Since we had not brought any food we decided to jump our bikes and go find something delicious at a convini. An hour later were back and eating on the grass with the rest of the crowd. 

Finally the time came to try and get the giant kite up. It took a lot of time (someone told us they take so much time because the kite MUST FLY to some degree - it would be total humiliation if it doesn't fly so that's why they do so much prep before they commit to flying it) Long wait, short - after another hour or so, they finally got the giant kite up! It flew really well, in fact they got it all the way up (used up all the rope they had on it). It is tied off to a backhoe but they still have lots of manpower on the ropes to get it up and help it fly. But for a few minutes the kite was flying all on it's own. The group of kite fliers who got it up did the Bonsai cheer three times when that happened!

Yesterday (Saturday) dad and I went on an MWR Tour to a placed called Hitachi Seaside Park. Our tour stopped by the Isosaki Shrine before the park and then went to the Hitachinaka Port fish market after the park. All three stops were interesting and fun. 

My favorite part of the day was renting bikes at the park and riding around the park. There are really NICE bike trails that go throughout the park. No bikes are allowed on the walking paths and no pedestrians are allowed on the bike paths - perfect! There are bike parking lots all along the path so you can ride to what you want to see or do, park and then walk to it.

The area we were in is called Ibaraki and it's along the coast, north of Tokyo. It took about 3 hours to get there. We left at 6am and returned back to Camp Zama at 7pm. Long day, but very fun!