Cherry Blossoms

Ah, spring. There’s a saying here. They say that when spring comes, the cherry blossoms bloom, and the weirdos come out to play. According to many Japanese, weirdos are seasonal occurrences (debatable) that come out to pester you while you’re trying to enjoy an afternoon in the park. Apparently they’re keen to come over and touch your hair and then go back to creeping everyone out with deranged whispering. With that, please enjoy some pictures that I took while trying to enjoy an afternoon of cherry blossom viewing in the park:

In case you were wondering, I packed another bento for our excursion:

You might say I’m addicted to bento making now. And you’d be correct. You might also say that I need to spend more time having friendly relationships with people instead of spending Friday nights in the kitchen by myself. I’d say things like this shed light on why my high school experience was the way it was. Anyway, I put off starting this one until 12:30 the night before and I didn’t get to bed until 3:30. Needless to say, it was a late start on flower viewing the next day.

In other news, I bought tickets to Fujirock. Between the 1-day and 3-day ticket choices, I opted to do the full 3 days, which cost me ¥39, 800 (that’s nearly 400 dollars in Monopoly money) but it’s totally worth it for a chance to get shickered, avouch my discipline issues, and throw something saucy at the lead singer of Vampire Weekend* …And possibly something heavy and blunt at the frontman for Air.

In a subject change to a topic that has nothing to do with anything, have a look at this:

Cute, right? This is Rilakkuma, a popular character in Japan somewhat akin to Hello Kitty. Cute as he may be, I find his backstory to be a little disturbing:

Rilakkuma mysteriously appears in the female office worker
Kaoru's apartment one day. He is a soft toy bear who has apparently decided to
take up residence there. On his back is a zipper which when opened reveals a
light blue polka dot patterned material. The contents or nature of this zipper
is unknown.

It is implied that…his entire lower body is a costume,
which he will often replace when it gets old or dirty (Rilakkuma is frequently
seen sitting around waiting for suits that look exactly like him to dry on the
clothes line). However, it is not clear whether his head is also part of his
costume. -Wikipedia

Is anyone else a little creeped out by this? If I had something like this going on in my apartment I would run screaming out of my place like a maniac, grabbing passers-by by the shoulders and shaking them and insisting that THERE’S AN ALIEN FURRY WASHING HIS BEAR SKIN-SUITS BACK THERE HALP MEH etc etc.

*Not as emo as it sounds. Why do so many good bands insist on terrible names?