Week 3: Hanami

“Hanami” translates to “flower viewing”; the cherry blossoms were at full bloom, so I went to a hanami party with colleagues and a bunch of other people I hadn’t met. It can be likened to a picnic, of sorts – people roll out tarps and sit on them, and basically drink under the cherry blossoms. Why, you ask? One: because it’s an excuse to drink. Two: because cherry blossoms are only in bloom for about 2 weeks; this is said to represent that all life is short yet beautiful.

Three: because it’s an excuse to drink.

My friend, colleague and next-door neighbour, Steve, invited me to catch a Taxi with him and his wife, Taeko. We went to Joyama Park, which is next to Zenkoji. At one point, the taxi driver looked at me in the rearview mirror and said something in Japanese… at which Steve and Taeko laughed. I, of course, didn’t understand until he translated into broken English, saying I was “handsome boy” and “maybe movie star”. So yeah, I was hit on by an old taxi driver.

I met some of Steve’s friends, other foreigners who teach English in Nagano. I joined everyone on the tarp and we commenced the drinking. In the early afternoon, a couple of very random and very drunk Japanese guys sat down beside our tarp. They were inviting me to sit closer to them. They even tried some words of English – including when one of them boldly proposed, “I want you.” It was very funny… they were so drunk.

Not long afterwards, Emily (another co-worker) and her boyfriend Sacha arrived, so Steve and I went with them to join our other colleagues on a tarp some fifty meters away. Even though it was only mid-afternoon, there were drunken people stumbling around everywhere. And everyone was super-friendly. Like that family of drunken old geezers who came and talked to us for no reason in particular. They explained (in Japanese) how when they were children they planted all the cherry blossoms around Joyama Park. Then one old guy said something that was supposedly funny, touched my cheek, and they swaggered off together, cackling. My friends translated that he’d decided I was good-looking. That was the third time that had happened – and not the last, either. The final time was by a guy on our tarp, a friend of my friends – and let’s just say he was much more direct. So basically I was hit on four times in one day. And in case you didn’t realise already (cause I sure as hell did)... They were all guys!!! I don’t understand why it’s only ever guys!

After playing Frisbee for over an hour, I returned to the eating and the drinking. Not much later it started getting dark and cold, so we packed up and moved to a very traditional Japanese restaraunt to conclude the hanami celebrations. We were only served drinks and bits of food, including warm soba, fish cakes, and pig intestines. I’ll tell you what, pig intestines sure are strange-tasting…

See Hanami slideshow.