Spring of Color

Short lived as it is, spring is postcard perfect in Japan. The sakura have bloomed and my heavy winter sweaters are put away for another year.

It’s great to finally be motivated enough by the weather to go outside and do things.
There’s a saying, modified from an old Chinese poem, that describes this season: 春民暁を覚えず(Shumin akatsuki o oboezu). It means “In spring, one sleeps a sleep that knows no dawn”. The weather has grown so fine that people are staying out later (probably under the sakura trees), and thus sleeping later and avoiding the dawn. You could also say that since the sun is rising much earlier (5 am this morning for me), people wake up with full sunshine instead of the cold grey of winter.

Here are some of the things that have made me forget what dawn looks like:

Color Run: The happiest untimed 5K run on the planet!

Aomori: First day of spring, and it snowed enough to delay our bus

Sakura: The classic sign of winter ending and spring beginning.

Rat Tales

My application to stay for a fourth year on JET went through! I received the paperwork today and have never felt so relieved. Well, there was that time when I got the acceptance notice from JET. I felt pretty relieved then too.

 

I have big plans for the next year in terms of cementing my lesson plans, continuing my professional development, and getting involved with JET on a local and national level. Hopefully I still have time to socialize and see the last things on my Japan Bucket List!

 

It’s really interesting looking back at how quickly time has gone by. Some days it still feels like I arrived a few months ago. It’s only when I compare my life to the lives of others, when I hear about graduations, weddings, break ups and other adventurous stepping stones of life that I grasp how long I’ve lived here.

 

Remember that umeshuu I started brewing last summer? Well, The Dude and I got back from our trip to the US for the holidays and after all the hell United Airlines put us through, we needed a drink. Voila! The perfect “I-have-no-energy-to-leave-the-apartment-much-less-my-bed” answer. It’s still a bit tart, however store bought umeshuu has a tendency to be sickly sweet so this is a nice balance. We found that adding a bit of Sprite or soda water tones down the tartness.

 

Surprisingly enough, our rats like the flavor too- what few drops they’ve managed to lick up behind our backs.

Hans enjoys the sweeter things in life

 Oh, yes! The rats! It’s been a hard transition to a life without pets. My kitty passed away in the time that I was gone too. It wasn’t unexpected, but it still hurt. Anyway, I got to reminiscing about pets with The Dude and my rats were a topic that kept coming back up. The Dude was really curious about pet rats, and I apparently managed to convince him they were cool, because we searched out a pet shop and brought home two little bouncing balls of energy.

 

Their names are Hans and Dieter and their presence in our lives has been nothing short of magical! Recently, I’ve been dealing with some really lame school bureaucracy, and the thought of going home at the end of the day to play with the rats is sometimes the only thing that get me out of a negative funk.

 

Thank goodness for pets. Even better is how much The Dude has fallen in love with them. He has an album on his phone dedicated to them and I fear it’s only a matter of time before he makes a Facebook page for them!