sakura matsuri

Sakura means cherry blossom, and matsuri means festival. This means the cherry blossom festival in Hitachi has been aptly named. Myself and the people from my Mito Branch training group joined forces to eat food, take pictures, and have fun at the Hitachi Sakura Matsuri.

The trains are still a thing that I'm trying to figure out. They're not as English-translated as the MRTs in Taipei were, nor do they come as often. There are displays that tell you when the trains are coming, and labels on the trains to say where they're going, but if you make a mistake and have to get off at the next stop, it may be a while before another train comes to take you to where you intended to go. A map comes in handy. So does the question "____ eki wa doko desu ka?" Or, Where is ___ train station? It's a simplistic question that I have used in numerous situations. Thankfully, many Japanese people are more than happy to help.

I hopped onto the train from Sawa station and rode it to Hitachi station. The festival was easy to find: it was right outside the station, and everyone was walking toward it. Once we'd all found each other, we headed toward the noise.

There was a lot going on. Kids' dance groups performing, vendors selling all manner of food, and cherry blossom trees everywhere. The trees lined Heiwa St., making a canopy of blossoms that was gorgeous to look at. Other people were taking as many pictures as I was.

For the most part, our group wandered around, eating food, taking pictures, and just seeing everything. We did some fun things like pound authentic mochi (rice ground into a paste and eaten like taffy).

At one point, later in the day, we decided to investigate Kamine Park, which was about a mile's walk away and supposedly had lots of sakura trees in a more traditional landscape. The walk, however, drained most of the energy a lot of us had left, and we barely stayed before heading back down. It was getting dark, anyway, as the sun starts going down around 6 and is completely gone by 8. We arrived at the train station and went our separate ways, mostly in silence, digesting food and the excitement of the day.

I took so many pictures.

One thought that keeps coming back to me is that I still can't believe I'm here. In all the years I watched anime, read manga, and learned about Japan, I never actually thought I'd ever be here, able to participate in the culture I'd admired from afar. In many anime and manga, characters go to a shrine and make an offering before praying for luck, or wisdom, or good grades in school, or whatever they want. There's a Shinto shrine by my house. I can go there whenever I want. Similarly, cherry blossom festivals are a strong part of Japanese culture. Now I've been to one. I'm going to teach at a Japanese school, where the kids are going to eat in the classroom, clean up the school at the end of the day, and essentially do all the things that kids in anime and manga all do. I'm going to watch these practices in action, because these things are in anime and manga because they're part of Japanese culture.

I pounded actual mochi and ate it today. I didn't think I'd ever do that, either.

Someday I'm going to go to Tokyo, and Kyoto. I'm going to visit a cat cafe, and the cat island. I'm going to watch anime on TV and in theaters. I'm going to learn Japanese and speak it to other people.

I've felt a bit numb these past days, and I can't decide if it's sheer disbelief that I've actually realized a dream I didn't think I'd ever get, or peace at finally being here. I really, genuinely can't tell.

I'm eager for work to start. Having to participate in life again should wake me up. At the very least, getting paid at the end of May will perk me up, since right now I have a daily spending budget that I absolutely must stay under. That's all months away, though. And somehow, I'm in no rush. I enjoyed ambling around today, because in my mind, this is only my first Sakura Matsuri of many. I plan to be here for at least one more.

I'm in Japan, and I'm in absolutely no rush to go anywhere else.