Ookagawa Sakuramatsuri

Been waiting for weeks for this weather. Thankfully, the great weather came on a weekend when most of the sakura where already in full bloom, roughly 80%. Of course, it’s gonna be a busy weekend.

First destination for the sakura season: mobile sakura matsuri (cherry blossoms festival) traversing the 4.5 km Ooka River. There were so many people as expected. But I’m happy I was lucky enough to take some shots of “serenity” and not chaos.

Love the last photo.

I also love shots of the sakura against the water.

Hello there duck!

Now these are both our (Atsushi’s and mine) favorite. Reminds me of my favorite line in my favorite cartoon movie Mulan,

The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all.

But lo, how beautiful the illuminated sakura is!!

But of course, it being a matsuri/festival, food stalls also line the street selling traditional Japanese street food like yakitori, takoyaki and okonomiyaki among MANY others.

Popular among kids are the candied strawberries, apple and banana.

Ahh tsukareta (tired). But it was fun indeed! Especially since we met up with Atsushi’s friend Kamio-san. I love listening to their laughter as they patiently wait for me while I was busy clicking around.

Time for bed as tomorrow is gonna be a busy one as well. 🙂

Thank you for today Lord! And thank you for technology – with it, my parents can see how big I am already even when they’re oceans away.

 

 

 

 

Kitkat green tea Air in

They don’t just come in different flavors. They also come in different….forms. This one’s the “air in” variety. Reminds me of sports shoes actually. 😀

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Will update this post once I’ll have my snacks later and get a taste on the bubbles effect.
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Some update.

This is what I just love with buying Japanese food. You’ll know how many calories you are getting. This one bar for instance gives you 40kcal of energy.

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Indeed, this variant has bubbles. Matcha and chocolate is much thicker than the wafer itself. But I ain’t complaining! It definitely is VERY good; not overly sweet at all. 🙂

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paperbag cover

The sky has been overcast since noon and looks like it’s about to rain now that it’s late afternoon. And so, just like any other shop here in Japan, the saleslady wrapped my paperbag with a plastic cover so that my paperbag and my purchase, which would then be wet from the open end of the paperbag if ever, would be protected from getting wet. Really quite thoughtful isn’t it?

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And yes, I finally found chocolate colored high-heeled boots (the specs for this month-long hunt) for this winter that fit my feet and legs. Yey!
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Updated this post to add a photo of ze boots (as urged by hubs).

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I just love the colorful sole.

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Hanabi

Hanabi, or the Fireworks Display is one anticipated event here in Japan. Yes sure we’ve all seen fireworks every now and then. But there’s nothing quite like the Japanese Hanabi – especially if you consider that these continuous pyrotechnic lasts an hour at the least, with some lasting for two full hours! And it’s not just the length mind you, the organizers go to lengths as to provide displays that can just make you smile real wide like a kid even when you’ve been to countless hanabi in the summer, every summer.

This year though, the hanabi has been more a treat as compared to the previous years. A lot of the usual hanabi events had been called off this year, both as sign of mourning over the March 11 disaster and as cost-cutting as well. But of course, there’s still reason to rejoice and probably it’s because of that that the major Hanabi in certain cities still pushed through.

Yokohama’s hanabi was held this evening. This actually was our (mine and hubby’s) first hanabi together as husband and wife. And so we spent it watching together at the 34th floor of our office where we currently are billeted (pretty ironic yes, that even when our building has 36 floors or so, we happen to be assigned on the same floor though maybe not for long since he’ll be moving to another floor next month for another project). And yes, we were working overtime.

Here’s some of the pictures I’ve taken. Totally unedited (still trying to get to know our new gadget).

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oden!!!

It was unu~~~~sually cold today because of typhoon Ma On. Felt like early autumn or late spring. The weather was just perfect for – what else??!! – oden!!

I just love oden when it’s cold weather.

I’m not so fond of konnyaku (or konjac) – the black thingy in above photo. I find it weird, hard and yet slimy with undefinable taste. Hence, Hubby ate both konnyaku’s instead of us having a konnyaku each.

My favorite oden choices: tamago (egg), sausage with chikuwa ちくわ (sausage without chikuwa seems not available anymore) and tofu.

And of course, we didn’t waste the broth! I actually had a big smile on as I finished slurping the broth from the big bowl. Yum!