Luthe_N's Japanese Adventure: Hanami at Maruyama Koen

Today was a very fun day. I saw some pictures on Thursday night from a friend of mine that is studying in Sapporo on facebook. She went to Maruyama Koen to see the cherry blossoms. In Japan flower viewing is called 'Hanami' and it's a big deal. Japanese people like to go out and view the flowers, but they also like to sit under them and have picnics, use portable grills for yakiniku, and drink beer. Tons of Japanese flood parks to do this. We, as good ryuugakusei could do no less. Although we did leave the grill at home. Lol.

The park was packed with Japanese people doing yakiniku 'grilled beef' (thin slices usually) on jerry-rigged grills and sitting on tarps. In the US it would be burgers and blankets. But I guess we're not all that different in this respect. The area we picked to sit didn't have that many people sitting around it but we were practically in the woods and all the food stalls were right nearby. We got Subway sandwiches, chips, and drinks to bring with us from Sapporo station but Pierre wanted to eat real Japanese 'Hanami food' so he bought stuff like Dango, mochi, and green tea. But the park itself had food stalls set up like at a fair so he also got Ika (squid), Toukibi (grilled corn), and this weird type of Japanese soda. I also tried to corn and the soda. The corn was ok but not like US corn because instead of butter this was marinated in some sort of soy sauce I think. The soda was like drinking candy, it comes in a glass bottle and has a marble stuck in the lid that makes it impossible to drink from. The cap that comes with it is detachable, you turn it around and then slam it into the marble to dislodge it. Very interesting actually.

After we gorged ourselves on food (we had a tarp to sit on too) we headed out to try some of the kiddie games that they had available. We all decided to try the fish game. Basically there's all these goldfish swimming around in this big pool and you're given this net with a flat piece of paper to catch the fish with. You get to keep trying until the paper breaks, then your turn is over. I caught two fishies! Pierre caught 3 goldfish and then Karolina caught 3 black bubble-eye fish and one goldfish. But you only get to keep 1 black fish because they cost more I guess. So she gave it to Pierre and he kept 3 of the goldfish and I took 3 of the goldfish. He named his after the SG-1 team. I named one fish Horatio Hornblower but didn't name the other two.

We then headed out to see the beautiful cherry blossoms (or what was left of them!) that were situated in a grove a little further into the park. Maruyama Koen is supposed to be the best place in Sapporo to see cherry blossoms but I don't know if this is true or not. We came into it a bit late so we missed most of the 5 petal cherry blossoms and only got to see the 'dragonfly sakura' which have many petals. But the park was beautiful and we also got to see a few, small Magnolia trees while we were there as well.

Lastly we visited a Shinto shrine that was located adjacent to the park. There was a nice, wide path leading up to the shrine that was lined with trees and stone lanterns. I think they had hooked electric lines up to the lanterns though so that they could be lit with electricity. That sort of detracts from the ancient aura that you dream of when you think about Japanese shrines. Meh. What can you do? There was a wedding going on when we made it to the main temple building. The bride & groom were wearing traditional Japanese wedding gowns and so were the people conducting the ceremony. I didn't take any pictures because I thought it would be a bit rude but Bonglim wasn't deterred! He took a ton of pictures of them during the ceremony, and after the ceremony when they came outside as well! At one point he was standing about a foot directly behind the professional photographer. Never let it be said that asian tourists let anything stand in their way of enjoyment!

Once we were done at the shrine we cleaned up our picnic site and headed back to the subway station. It was actually a pretty cold day (65 F tops) and was getting colder now that the sun was beginning to set. Everybody was pretty worn out and Karolina was freezing. We took the subway all the way back to Sapporo station instead of walking from Oodori because we were all exhausted. Then Pierre and I headed off to Wing Bay to buy fishie supplies and the rest headed home to Otaru. However Pierre and I got on an earlier train by mistake (and a rapid at that!) so we all ended up arriving at Otaru station on the same train! The others took the next train (about 15 min later) that was a local and so we could all take a taxi back together which was very nice as I was tired.

But there was no rest for the wicked because the next day I was heading out to an Onsen! Daini Meisui Tei was the 'english' name for the Onsen resort. And I will be talking about it in my next post. But for right now please enjoy some pictures from our trip to Maruyama Koen. :)

P.S. As for the fish, the only one I still have is Horatio, the other two fish died mysteriously. Jenna suspects that Horatio murdered them but we've no proof!