Hanami Cruise!

Hey all! Are you ready to hear about Hanami? You better be, because this all happened like 3 weeks ago!

You might be asking yourself, "What's a hanami?  Is that the thing where samurai gut themselves or whatever?"  To answer that question: nope!  Hanami is the Japanese word for "flower viewing." It can also refer to the parties that happen every spring in early April when the cherry blossoms are in bloom. It's a really beautiful time in Japan, so to celebrate it, Joanna booked us on a deluxe cherry blossom cruise around the Seto Inland Sea south of Hiroshima because she is the coolest.

Our cool cruise boat. Outside of a little girl, we were the youngest ones on it.  Also the only foreigners!

The first stop was Sagishima, a small island where they grow oranges.  When I first heard about hanami, I thought there might be a pretty pink tree here or there.  On Sagishima was proven ridiculously wrong - the cherry trees were EVERYWHERE.   I think the pictures speak for themselves here, so I'll only caption here if I have something to add.

Your faithful journalists atop Sagishima.

 

They smelled great too!

These funny old ladies were from our tour.  They were so freaking giddy about hanami!  Here they are getting their picture taken.

This lady was feeding her dog ice cream.

These ladies were part of the Sagishima Welcome Wagon.  They greeted us on the island when we arrived, and here they are waving us off.  The sign reads "Sagishima e mata!! Kite ne" which means "Please come back to Sagishima!!"

The next stop on the cruise was the island town of Sedota, where we had lunch and an hour to explore.  In that time we found Kosanji, one of the weirdest temples we've seen in Japan.  Unlike a lot of holy places, it was built very recently, having finished construction in the mid 1950's.  The story behind it is that a wealthy steel pipe tycoon's elderly mother died.  In his grief, he decided to devote his life to Buddhism and used his remaining fortune to build Kosanji in honor of his mom.  Oh, and for Buddha. The place is brightly colored and decorated to a silly degree.  It reminded us of some kind of Buddha Disneyland.  But it had cherry blossoms, so we checked it out!

(Note that I'm only putting a few Kosanji pics on here, so if you wanna see more of the place's weirdness, check my Facebook hanami album!)

There was a part where you went through a winding underground cave representing Buddhist hell.  When you popped out, this giant Kannon Boddisatva was there to greet you.  I don't know either.

 

After our short break, it was off again for our next destination, Hirakiyama Flower Park on Hakatashima Island.  And here we thought Sagishima was covered.  This place was ABSURD.

From the viewing platform.

One of the best parts of the Flower Park was that we got to see people celebrating Hanami the Japanese way - having picnics, getting drunk, and taking naps.  Hanami is the greatest!

Feeding dogs people food must be a hanami thing!

 

 

You can see the observation tower poking out of the top there!

There was also this huge slide.  Since it was made for children and she was wearing a skirt, Joanna went stupidly fast.  I swear she got at least a foot of air on one of the humps.  When she landed at the bottom without falling down, the drunk Japanese people all clapped for her.

So that was our cruise!  It was a beautiful pink cherry blossom time with lots of photo opportunities.  I took at least 100 pictures so it was really hard to pick favorites.  Like I said, there are more on my Facebook if you wanna check em out. 

What's next on the docket?  Well, we still have to make a post about Joanna's birthday at the hot spring.  And did I mention we just got back from Tokyo?  Well, we just got back from Tokyo.  And boy do we have things to tell you about!  Akihabara!  Harajuku!  Maid cafes!  The Ghibli Museum!  Tokyo Disneyland!  It's all coming atcha in a matter of time, so be patient and check back often!