The cherry blossoms have finally come out (meaning spring has at last arrived) and they are amazing. The bike path looks like a tunnel of cherry blossoms because you can't see anything else. It's almost like riding through a giant thing of cotton candy. I will post pictures when I take some decent ones.

Vacations in Japan are a huge huge conspiracy thought up by the travel industry to suck money out of the innocent consumers (the big businesses are in on it too though). Bigger conspiracy than Valentine's Day!

So here's what happens: Everyone in Japan (ok, maybe only like 90% of the people) have 3 weeks of paid vacation every year. Sounds good so far. Those three weeks are given during New Years, Golden Week in May, and Oban in August. You can't take other times off, all of Japan is on vacation during those three weeks. The travel industry jacks the prices up drastically during those 3 weeks in order to gouge the travelers. For example, if I were to book a flight to Thailand leaving 2 days before Golden Week starts and coming back 1 day after it ends, my flight would be $500 cheaper. I went into a travel agent yesterday to do another check on prices to Thailand, the travel agent laughed at me and wouldn't even give me prices. This vacation thing is garbage, you may get the time off, but you can't afford to go anywhere!!!! Grrrrr!!!!!!!!

It is once again Haiku season:

A warm wind blows down
Cares fall like cherry blossoms
Away from this world

For more information on Haiku go here.

Sign in Meriken Park:
The following are prohibited:
-Making Fire.
-Playing games with hard balls.
-Selling without permission.
-Leaving dogs.
(I really wish I could ask for clarification about the hard ball rule, and how many people leave their dogs in the middle of Kobe)


On the site of the first American Consulate in Kobe (1886) is now a "Grand-Back Big and Tall Store" This somehow seems appropriate. They even have a plaque giving you these details in case you were curious.

For Teachers: Genki English

I just returned from Kobe and had a wonderful time! (I thought it was time to escape from the dullness that tends to engulf Fukui). I will write more later, but I wanted to say that I was renewed in my belief that the Japanese people are extremely kind to strangers (and even foreigners who speak poor Japanese). Living in Fukui I had started to forget about that (maybe I had even grown cunical in the last week since my hit-and-run experience). But here goes my story of kindness:

On the train on the way to Osaka I offered the little old lady next to me a chocolate covered almond (for some reason I find all little old ladies in Japan very cute, they are so small and determined and very unlike older people in America). We started talking (in Japanese) and before I knew it she was feeding me bread and sweets and even sent me on my way with extra sweets for me and my friend in Kobe. I had a good time talking to her, despite not understanding the whold conversation.

Thursday I went to Arima Onsen by myself (my friend Ted was working). I couldn't find the onsen from the train station though because there were gads of buildings covered in Japanese writing and I couldn't read one of them. So I asked a group of girls about my age where an onsen was and they took me to one and made sure that I understood how to pay and got inside ok (you have do a funny thing with buying a ticket and putting shoes in strange lockers). Then after the onsen (which was very enjoyable) and lunch, I went to a public foot bath that is fed by the natural hot spring. I was sitting there soaking my feet when I was suddenly in a conversation with several groups of travelers who had just met there. Before I knew if we were taking pictures of eachother, having other people take pictures of the group of us, and I was again being fed. As a side note I have yet to figure out why the Japanese like to feed me so much. When I was first traveling to Fukui I met a woman in Kyoto who fed me, a woman on the bus to Nagoya one time fed me... I am thinking perhaps I look perpetually hungry, or maybe it is a grandmother thing, but the Japanese love to feed me, and none of my other foreign friends have that happen to them. After I finally parted ways with my new friends an old man asked to take a picture with me, a woman who is going to New York next week started talking to me on the street (we walked up and down the street several times before we realized that neither of us knew where we were going). As I was at the train station and starting to realize none of the signs were printed in English and I didn't have the foggiest clue how to get back to Kobe I ran into the first group of girls who had guided me to the onsen. It just so happened that they were on their way back to the same subway stop as me and helped me. I then went in search of a foreign food store (and marmite for John). I asked a woman in a store and she took me across the store to the information desk, and the woman from the information desk led me on a 5-minute journey through underground tunnels to the foreign food store (definitely outside of her call of duty).

I suppose speaking Japanese helps, but I was just blown away at how many complete strangers were so genuinely nice to me in the last few days. It really makes me want to travel more often.