Hanami
The weekend before last was largely a failure in a superficial sense. Not necessarily always disspointing or bad, but comprised of a series of unexpected turns and deviations from plan that resulted in something entirely different from the weekend I had planned. Two separate excursions I made to Hanami...one to Himeji Castle, the other to Toyooka...one saturday, one sunday. Both rainy. Yes, clouds covered the sky all weekend. The lighting was flat, dull, and horrible for photography, the colors at the castle and of the blossoms themselves seemed washed out and weak. A chill wind swept around, leaving partiers cursing flip-flops, thin sweaters, and shorts. See, the cheat was that both mornings were beautiful, cunningly sunny, warm and inviting...it was the afternoons that decended grey and gloomy on everyone's flower-fun. Second failure was lack of planning on my part. See...I drove to Himeji, firstly having no idea what a pure spectacle of crowds the castle would be (turns out this wasn't some casual hanami, but a massive Hanami (with a capital H) festival. I stood in a line of cars for nearly 45 minutes just waiting to turn into the parking lot. Despite the weather, people came out in droves, and the lines for the sake taste test were packed...the reviews were good too, and only 100 yen a cup...and thats when I realized driving was the worst possible mode of transportation to this event. See, the word and activity "Hanami" is really just a Japanese euphamism for "Drunk in the Afternoon" and if I had known every last one of my fellow Hanami-ers was packin booze and bentos (of my own I brought neither), I I might have thought to come prepared. Instead I stood around and watched everyone else get drunk. People got that kind of drunk where they come over to you and ask, "HEyyyyy man*burp, Whassssap? I mean, are you oK n stuff? you seem kinda down r somthin, like why you all antisocial nshiit?" No, I'm not antisocial...I'm just SOBER or did you forget since I told you the last THREE times you asked me that question? You know, I'm not normally pissy about being the sober guy at the party, but in the absence of anything else to do, I wandered aimlessly, took shitty, gray pictures, and mostly and waited for an appropriate time to leave. I thought playing frisbee sounded like a good way to pass the afternoon...even if it was drizzling and crowded...that is until I hit an old lady square in the face with a rogue pass.
Eventually, however, it was time to head to Lorelei's birthday celebration at Robin's house...which I had kinda pictured as a weird party full of people I didn'T know well standing around awkwardly trying to look like they're having fun...but was again given something counter-expectation, thankfully. Jeff Weese was hilariously drunk...we went on excursions blasting punkrock and chowing onigiri. At the combini he sees those nasty, sticky, multicolored "balls" on a stick (god knows what the fuck they actually are), points at them and says, in a very mysterious whisper, "I want those...I want ....I want to be a unicorn..." I thought he was making a joke, but we got in the car and he'd actually bought them...and when we got back to the house he'd forgotten that he'd bought them, and didn't want them, and when I told them he bought them and now he damn well better had to be a Unicorn fer fucks sake a-and I mean just think of the poor starving children in cambodia who dream of being unicorns but can't because their arms were blown off by landmines &c. ....so he'd better damn well get some use out of the damn balls just like he'd promised, he finally did put them on the top of his head and pranced around the party to the bewilderment of everyone else present. These kinds of antics continued all night, except for when he dissappeared for almost an hour and was found prancing and singing up the street a ways. I drank enough to wobble, but hardly enough to match Jeff, who had been drinking since early afternoon. It was up at the crack'a dawn in the morning, as it was off to sports for lorelei as usual (every waking second that you might hang out with her, she always has to leave "a little early" for a rugby tourney, a soccer match, a frisbee thing, or whatever, one of her 60,000,000,000,000 sports things...after which she will give you a complete list of injuries recieved and subsequently overcome). It was a morning that would have been depressing if I had actually thought about it. Early as it was, Jeff was long gone. Sitting in a strange kitchen with mostly strangers (how does this happen to me so often here?) I just hopped straight in my car and drove off in deceptive morning sunshine.
By the time I got to Toyooka for my second hanami date, the weather had already turned, and was greying by the minute. After finding the group, I hunched down on the blanket and dove into the communal food. Out of the blue, two Japanese people walked up behind me and started playing traditional Japanese guitar-like instruments, the name of which eludes me now. It was awesome...sitting there listening to this crazy twangy music with cherry blossoms flurrying in the background. I took a video for posterity. Then it started to drizzle...so people moved into the little gazebo and crowded shoulder to shoulder around the one wooden bench as Greyson broke out his congas, John hopped on a guitar, and together, we pumped out the jams. Hotel California. Stairway to Heaven. Like a Rolling Stone. Proud Mary. World's most random pickup band does all your favorite classic rock hits! Now accepting requests! Some guy asked us to come back and play Toyookas summer festival as a drizzle turned to downpoar. The rain was coming down in huge heavy sheets, pounding all around this tiny gazebo while our three-man hippy jam band cranked out CCR's Have You Ever Seen The Rain and Who'll Stop the Rain. Rain or no, it just kept going on and on and on...and honestly, it was shit-tons of fun. All kinds of vague promises were made to play again etc etc, and people finally began to peel off as it grew dark.
Eventually, however, it was time to head to Lorelei's birthday celebration at Robin's house...which I had kinda pictured as a weird party full of people I didn'T know well standing around awkwardly trying to look like they're having fun...but was again given something counter-expectation, thankfully. Jeff Weese was hilariously drunk...we went on excursions blasting punkrock and chowing onigiri. At the combini he sees those nasty, sticky, multicolored "balls" on a stick (god knows what the fuck they actually are), points at them and says, in a very mysterious whisper, "I want those...I want ....I want to be a unicorn..." I thought he was making a joke, but we got in the car and he'd actually bought them...and when we got back to the house he'd forgotten that he'd bought them, and didn't want them, and when I told them he bought them and now he damn well better had to be a Unicorn fer fucks sake a-and I mean just think of the poor starving children in cambodia who dream of being unicorns but can't because their arms were blown off by landmines &c. ....so he'd better damn well get some use out of the damn balls just like he'd promised, he finally did put them on the top of his head and pranced around the party to the bewilderment of everyone else present. These kinds of antics continued all night, except for when he dissappeared for almost an hour and was found prancing and singing up the street a ways. I drank enough to wobble, but hardly enough to match Jeff, who had been drinking since early afternoon. It was up at the crack'a dawn in the morning, as it was off to sports for lorelei as usual (every waking second that you might hang out with her, she always has to leave "a little early" for a rugby tourney, a soccer match, a frisbee thing, or whatever, one of her 60,000,000,000,000 sports things...after which she will give you a complete list of injuries recieved and subsequently overcome). It was a morning that would have been depressing if I had actually thought about it. Early as it was, Jeff was long gone. Sitting in a strange kitchen with mostly strangers (how does this happen to me so often here?) I just hopped straight in my car and drove off in deceptive morning sunshine.
By the time I got to Toyooka for my second hanami date, the weather had already turned, and was greying by the minute. After finding the group, I hunched down on the blanket and dove into the communal food. Out of the blue, two Japanese people walked up behind me and started playing traditional Japanese guitar-like instruments, the name of which eludes me now. It was awesome...sitting there listening to this crazy twangy music with cherry blossoms flurrying in the background. I took a video for posterity. Then it started to drizzle...so people moved into the little gazebo and crowded shoulder to shoulder around the one wooden bench as Greyson broke out his congas, John hopped on a guitar, and together, we pumped out the jams. Hotel California. Stairway to Heaven. Like a Rolling Stone. Proud Mary. World's most random pickup band does all your favorite classic rock hits! Now accepting requests! Some guy asked us to come back and play Toyookas summer festival as a drizzle turned to downpoar. The rain was coming down in huge heavy sheets, pounding all around this tiny gazebo while our three-man hippy jam band cranked out CCR's Have You Ever Seen The Rain and Who'll Stop the Rain. Rain or no, it just kept going on and on and on...and honestly, it was shit-tons of fun. All kinds of vague promises were made to play again etc etc, and people finally began to peel off as it grew dark.