Ephemeral and Beautiful

Hi All,

Has it been long? Lol

See what happened was that… well… So April came with a storm of things to do and people to meet and of course the blogging has been sacrificed; a lot.

Laziness too you know. Procrastination: I shall always begin, start, initiate, take the first step, and/or write the first word, when I get around to it.

Any way,

April = 桜 (sakura) They were just everywhere and they are ever so lovely.

The petals having radiated beauty only briefly as a blossom, fall as though snowflakes in the wind. It’s no wonder they are cherished so much and they have been the topic of many haikus or more accurately 季語（kigo) meaning season word and other types of poems.

One of our newest Japanese friends. Tetsuya!

We wanted eagerly to participate in a 花見 (hanami), a Sakura watching picnic.

We went over to our friend’s house, Yuriko. We slept at her house the night before.

Woke up too early to make our picnic food and enjoyed the last of the Sakura while having brunch.

making おにぎり (onigiri) or rice-balls!

Did you meet Andrew? Newest member to our foreign student orchestra. ISEP student from New Orleans!

And well…

As I said before Part I was my mother’s visit and Part II is my revisit to Yokohama. I was invited to stay the night at my friend’s house, Mariko. I was taken to one of her favorite restaurant as well as shown one of her favorite places to view the Yokohama skyline.

Mariko's lovely home =)

I love Yokohama. The architecture is great and it’s a port city so you can smell the sea and be surrounded by water. It is aesthetically peaceful to me.

Highlights

Lest not forget that other flowers also bloom. And though their significance is greatly overshadow by the Sakura, 椿 (tsubaki) camellia, are also beautiful and possibly my favorite if not one of my favorite flowers.

Well that's all for now.

Later.

So It Begins (again)!

Hi All,

Finally things are moving along!! I’ve had a great week thus far; the start of the semester, seeing old faces, meeting new people!

Oh and the weather, the weather has been great (except for today)! Bring it with it the blooming of the 桜 (Sakura) in this area.

I can be happy again, it’s been a little tough since 3/11 but cheerfulness is in the horizon now.

The semester has thus far started the same way as last; we know barely any one and the chaos of registering. In lieu of that I will finally talk about the events prior to 3/11.

The first part: My mother’s visit

Now, my relationship with my mother is quite unique. She used to be a policewoman in the Dominican Republic before she gave it all up to pursue the American dream. With that said, she’s a lot on the austere side. Her humor is almost non-existent, add that to the fact that I am not a serious person – at all, and you get a picture of our relationship.

Her arrival had me stressed. This is a small town, how do I keep her busy?!! But I was able to plan through her 10-day stay no problem.

Thank you all my friends in Japan!! I could not have done it without you!　みんな手伝ってくれてありがとうございました。

Some of the things we did were to explore the surrounding area in bikes (I was totally shocked that my mother could ride a bike, I never knew), have lunch with my friends and so on…

We had lunch with the Professor I TAed for, who kindly invited us to lunch and gave us a lovely tour of some of the nice touristic areas in the Shizuoka peninsula.

We visited my friend’s home and my mother tried on a kimono.

We went to Tokyo Disney Sea

It was interesting. My mother quite enjoyed her time here. She loved Japan and the Japanese people. She loved how disciplined and polite everyone is here. She left saying she would’ve liked to have stayed longer and in another time would’ve consider what a life in Japan would’ve been like…

I’ll tell you about the second part next time =)

Later.