Every year in Japan somewhere in March or April, all the pretty cherry blossoms magically turn from boring blank trees into waterfalls of pink and white flowers. In most countries we’d say “Well, that’s pretty” then ignore it. But not Japan. Because the blossom are only around for about ten days, and the Japanese spend the other 355 days talking about them, everyone throws big parties to celebrate. Hurrah! Before I go any further, here is a picture of said Hanami, using my new photo layout. Basically, instead of posting sets of three tiny pictures, I will post one big one instead, big enough so you don’t need to click on it unless you really want to see a bigger version.

As you can see, they’re pretty beautiful things. We definitely don’t have any trees that look quite as stunning as these do when everything’s all in bloom, but at the same time, come on Japan, it’s only a tree.

Tree or not, my good friends Satoshi and Yuko (who I went snowboarding with in Niigata) invited me and about 80 other people sit on some plastic sheets over a hard ground, drink a lot of beer, eat a lot of food and talk it up under said trees.

Bearing in mind the following rule;

Japanese People + Alcohol = Pure Insanity

Pure insanity quickly took over the proceedings. It wasn’t long before quite a few people were red in the face and stumbling a little, and considering there was enough food to feed an army it was becoming apparent that we were going to run out soon. Before some more people turned up and brought another six tonnes of dried octopus and soba noodles.

I’m not sure where it came from, but at some point in the party Satoshi had managed to get hold of a megaphone, and was barking such important messages such as “Drink! Now drink more!” and “I’m pretty wonderful!” at a regular rate. Normally someone from a quiet corner would chuck a brick at him, but as I previously stated the Japanese people plus alcohol rule reigned supreme, and nobody thought this was odd at all.

As much as I’d like to be able to sit here now and write “Gosh, those other Japanese (and a few foreigners) really were barmy”, except that the friend I brought along was not exactly scoring any home runs for Team Sanity. Yumi, one of Matt’s evening class students that we are both good friends with, had joined me and, even though she’d drunk less alcohol than you could find in say a brick, she was still running around the park chasing the children. Oh Yumi.

She did have a few allies in chasing said children, but in the end they won and, dejected, she gave up, came back and started talking rubbish again. I got the chance to talk to the kids using my wacky Japanese, which they enjoyed tremendously, especially when I made grammar mistakes that they would correct without the slightest sugaring of the pill. Their parents looked on with shocked faces as I stumbled my way through an imperfect verb and they massacred me, conjugation-style.

Finally, everyone was taken to an Izakaya (like a Japanese pub), where no doubt they got more drunk and the megaphone was abused even more. However, I had bigger fish to fry (bigger fish being actually making it home) so I decided to call it a day and head home. I’ve got about another six million Hanami parties to come, so stay tuned for more pictures of Yumi embarrassing herself. Not like they’re hard to find.

Possibly Related Content:

1. Party like it’s 2007
2. School Christmas Party Part 1
3. The Four Day Migraine Part 1
4. Halloween Party
5. What I Learned Today…