The last few months

Hey everyone, sorry it's been so long since my last post. Time started to get away from me after I started working all the time. Overall, things are going really well right now over here. I finally got past the hump of not having many students at work, which means a steady income and the ability to go out and do things. Recently we've been trying to go on one little adventure every Monday because it's our mutual day off. We aren't going super far from home, but there are good things to do near us. After we do those, we'll start to venture off a little further, but I doubt we'll need to for a while.

The weather over here is getting really nice, and it's been getting into the 60s consistently now for a month or so, and a couple days in the 70s. Quite a bit different from the NW I'm used to, having rain up till June. About 3 weeks ago the Cherry blossoms came, and were here for about 10 days or so. In Japan that's a pretty big thing for most people as their culture is built pretty heavily on the beauty of nature. They tend to plant huge groves of cherry trees in parks and along river banks just so that in the spring they can have "Hanami" (Cherry blossom viewing), where they go to the park, lay out some blankets and have a good excuse to have some drinks and socialize. On a nice weekend day in the bigger parks in Tokyo, there are potentially thousands of people out for the event. We weren't able to see such a big gathering this year because I work on the weekends, but we did go to a big park in Tokyo and got some nice pictures. Those will come in a bit. It was rainy, so we didn't hang out too long.

Other than that, we went to an old city nearby called Kamakura, which is famous here for being one of Japan's old capital cities, of which there are several. Those places have remained relatively untouched through war times and other events, so you can see what traditional Japan is all about.

Also, we went to a cool island in the bay here called Enoshima where there were some great views of Mt Fuji and other things.

So, that's more or less what I've been up to in the last couple months. Here are some pictures of the adventures!

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Enoshima

Hiratsuka Sogo Park

A nice park about 10 minutes from our apartment

Tokyo Hanami

Kamakura

And of course, some food! 

This is what they call "Chicken Katsu Curry". I'm a sucker for it and when it's on the menu I'm always quite tempted. Basically, they bread a chicken breast in Panko crumbs and then deep fry it. The curry in Japan is wet, and you eat it with a spoon. The Japanese are obsessed with it, and so am I!  

This is your average Sushi in Japan, and I believe this particular fish is Shad. If you've ever been to "conveyor belt sushi" at home in the states, I'm sorry to say you've never had sushi! At home, 95% of the sushi is in roll form, and rarely raw fish, but I would say that kind is only about 10% of what people eat here. This stuff is fantastic. You all need to come here and give it a try! 

That's all for now, thanks for reading!!