花見/hanami

桃の花
Originally uploaded by nitaspitas.

I went to hanami today with my two host families from church, even though it was drizzling and raining at different times of the day while we were out. It was nice because we went to a spot out in the countryside where no one else was out. Since they bloom for so little time, a lot of the more well-known spots in the city are really crowded, especially on a Sunday afternoon. I realized it was spring when I could hear the birds chirping outside, despite the gloomy weather.

I guess because everyone makes such a big deal about sakura and cherry blossoms, I always forget that we have peach and plum blossoms every year in our garden at home. But because they make as big a deal about peach blossoms here in Okayama, I thought about them again... I wonder if they've bloomed already...

Afterwards, we drove out into the mountains of Okayama to pick spring mountain grasses have gelato. It was about half an hour outside of the city, and we were driving so far out that I thought I'd heard wrong and that there was some sort of plant that had a similar pronunciation or something. But then, I realized they were trying to figure out what language 'gelato' came from and how it was different from ice cream.