The month started off with me going to Kyoto with my host mother, she had timed the trip so that we would be there for the Sakura (cherry blossom) season but they were incredibly late this year due to cold weather. While we were there it rained for the better half of the day and in the afternoon a storm rolled in, which was actually more exciting than bad. We went to see Sanjusangen-do, famous for it's one thousand and one wooden statues of the Buddhist deity Kannon. This was really impressive, made even more so by the fact that no two of the statues are the same and the extreme detail which was put into each of them. We also visited Kiyomizu temple, it over looks the whole of Kyoto up in the hills and underneath it lies hundreds of sakura trees. I also had the chance to make my own sensu (or Japanese fan), being really into Japanese art and art in general this was so cool! It's one of those things that I know i will keep for the rest of my life. Kyoto was full of excellent culture and awesome, I know I will get a chance to go back there on my exchange.
I went to Nagoya with another exchange student later that week to visit the Tokugawa Art museum and see the Hina Matsuri (or doll festival) exhibt that was being held there. It was cool, i like old things :D. We also wandered around one of the shopping distrcits a bit, it was nice being able to see the city on a nice day this time.
That weekend my host club took me with them on a day trip to Osaka (contrasting really well with Kyoto) to see the King Tut exhibtion and have lunch at this super fancy hotel. The exhibtion was amazing and the food, it was Chinese, was delious. I also think it gave me the chance to get to know my club a little better and talk to a few people that I hadn't yet talked to.
The Sakura had also come out by this time and I had a lot of time to go and take tones of pictures of them, i also went to a sakura festival in Yokkaichi with a friend of mine, we ate a lot of the food on sale, including chocolate covered banana's and pineapple. We talked a bit with some of the locals while we sat underneath the trees and watched a group of people play Japanese drums.
I changed host families that Tuesday, a little early due to the fact that my host mother had to go out of town. My new host family is excellent though, it's the first family where i have had host siblings that live in the same house as my host parents which is excellent. They live in the city of Kuwana which is right beside Yokkaichi, a one and a half hour drive from my old host family. It's really pretty here, lot's of bambo covered hills. The landscape sort of reminds me of the Anime Totoro :).
I went back to see my first host family, the Ichikawa's that weekend because they wanted to show me the Sakura trees outside their office, by this time it was nearing the very end of the season. It was nice going back to see the family again and i had lunch with Ichikawa-okasan and my host sister and her family.
The next day I went to a rotary orintation in Gifu, it was awesome seeing all the other exchange students again.
My host family took me to a manga kessa for lunch, which is a café that you go to to read the manga that basicly lines the walls of the place. It was super fun, i'm really enjoying all the manga and anime culture that is avalible here. That afternoon my host dad took me to a nearby tulip festival, the colours were beautiful, the Japanese love flowers and spring in general.
I love this country.
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