Hanami

Well, today was AEON's hanami party in Hachimanyama park - we worried that there would be no blossoms left on the cherry trees. And while many blossoms had given way to new green leaves, there were still many trees with blossoms still on them. Everywhere in the park there was a nice snowy covering of fallen petals. We also worried that it might rain, but we were lucky in this respect as well - the sun came out and it warmed up nicely during the time we were in the park. Here are some pictures from our time. I also want to make a disclaimer here - I am still learning names of students who are not mine so I may forget or get some wrong. I'll check them with Michel and Scott and get any mistakes corrected quickly.

First we have Scott with two of my students - Emiko (holding Tupperware against Scott's head) and Masae (with chopsticks) - and some people who I just met today, Mayu and Koji.
Some of our lovely students. These three had a won! derful! time. This was supposed to be a candid, but one of them saw me with the camera and this was the result:
Here's one of my non-regular discussion class students, Keizo, with Takashi (my FocusPoint student), Masaki - an AEON student I've talked with but don't really know, Scott, and Toshiyuki (from my Encounter class):
Kentaro (ViewPoint Student) and Naoto with our assistant manager Yukiyo and Madoka, one of our full-time teachers.
I bopped around the tarp a bit to talk to a lot of people and ended up forcing my homemade rice pudding on this group (note: Many Japanese people are not used to having rice in a sweet context - except maybe mochi. Its probably as weird for them as it is for me to bite into a sweet here and have the filling be a sweet bean paste). Seiko (my FocusPoint student) and Sayaka (the head teacher) both bravely tried - and liked - my rice pudding. I'm not sure if Takashi or Masaki had any. I talked with this bunch about "24" and "Beverly Hills 90210" (Kentaro slyly snuck into the picture):
After we ate, Yoshi moderated our Bingo game where we gave out prizes to several winners.
Here's Keizo, Shizuka, and Michel:
Mayu, Masae, Emiko, and Scott enjoying themselves:
And here's me and Toshiyuki. Toshi runs a lumber import business up in my area of town and offers me green tea when I stop by to say hello.
After the bingo game, a pair of wandering Japanese cowboys stopped by with their mics, speaker, and guitar and sang for us and then invited us to go up - karaoke style - and join them in a song. Our young caballero Scott, opting for beer over tequila this time, bounded up and sang "Country Road" (This of course lead to Michel and I having get up and sing - Michel sang "Yesterday" and I sang "Twist and Shout." - see Michel's blog - probably - for video footage of the event):
Here's the gang as we wrapped up the party.

It was an excellent day - it was a great way for me to get to know my students better and for them to know that I wear other clothes besides stuffy suits.