Hanami and Kobito

The sakura had been slowly blossoming over the past two weeks. This being only my second time experiencing it, I kept taking drives to see them, afraid I'd miss out. By the first week in April, they were just about in full bloom. Joey, Joe, Rose, Kim, and I planned a hanami party. I couldn't find spot Aaron and Evelyn took me to last year, so we tried a new place: Aso Bay Park.

After the previous night's festivities, I slept until about 10. I picked Rose and Joe up, and we headed up north. Along the way, I stopped at Woods Motors to pay for my insurance. The awesomely nice lady (whose name I still can't remember) had tried calling me during the week, but I don't answer if I don't recognize the number. She was calling to remind me to bring my inkan, something I forgot. She smilingly chided me, basically saying "you'd know these things if you answered your phone every now and then."

We got to the park a few minutes ahead of Joey. Kim had arrived first, and had already staked a claim to a beautiful patch of sakura trees. The air was filled with the dull roar of bees gorging themselves on the blossoms. Rose was none too happy about being so close to bees, but, as we all pointed out, they weren't interested in us in the slightest.

Joey had invited Haruka and her friend, Mami, who brought her daughter, Manaka. We all had a picnic lunch under the trees. It was a breezy day, which made it look like it was raining cherry blossom petals. I had done a little reading about Maine the day before, and asked her about blueberries. She told us all about the two main kinds of blueberries, and how Maine is famous for the bush variety. Blueberries from this plant are harvested by raking, and the harvest peaks in August. She told us about local blueberry farms paying people $10 per bucket to come and rake blueberries for them.

After lunch, we decided to go exploring. Just down the hill from our picnic spot, we found stables with pygmy horses. I recognized the spot as one of the places Toyota brought David, Sean, and me on my first weekend in Tsushima. Each of the horses had a name, and they all seemed happy to let us pet them. There was also a deer in an enclosure.

Farther down the hill, we came to an open field alongside an inlet of Aso Bay. Having been seeking just such an area, we kicked off our shoes and played sports for the next three hours. Frisbee, baseball, badminton, and soccer: we played everything we could. I spent about 45 minutes trying to teach Kim how to throw a skip with the disc. She understood what I was saying, but I couldn't convey it well enough to get her to throw it at the right angle. The closest we came to success was when I stuck my hand in the way of her throw, forcing her to drop her arm angle.

Toward the end of the day, we decided to do dinner at the restaurant Joey, Joe, and I had "discovered" a few weeks ago. We invited Haruka, Mami, and Manaka, too. They showed up about ten minutes after us. Haruka had brought her kids: Shizuku, a fifth-grader; Ryouta, a second-grader, and Souta, a five-year-old.

Souta had brought a book about Kobito, which means "little people." After Haruka tried to get the kids to talk to us, Souta slowly worked his way over with the book. I was genuinely interested in it, and he got so caught up in showing it to me that he forgot all about being shy.

The book described little creatures who live everywhere around us: some look like mushrooms, some have hats that are lilypads, some play tricks, etc. It functioned as a compendium and bestiary, cataloguing the different types. There were just as many kind-spirited ones as there were mean-spirited and neutral ones.

As we thumbed through the book, it struck me as introductory animism. It was teaching readers to wonder at the myriad creatures living all around us, often hidden just well enough for us not to notice. Some are helpful to us, some are harmful, and some just are--they don't worry about us one way or the other. While the book didn't explicitly teach reverence for the kobito, it also didn't portray them as pests to be squashed or dangers to be avoided. I found the whole thing fascinating.

Souta, for his part, told me all about them. It took him a few minutes to warm up to me, but once I started asking him questions about various kinds of kobito, he got on a roll. He first showed me his favorites, describing them and reading the captions under their pictures. I read with him, wanting to practice my Japanese. He occasionally asked me to read something, or to help him with a difficult kanji. I was able to handle some of it, but more often than not Haruka had to save the day.

Souta went back to his seat when the food arrived. This brought my attention back to the grown-ups section of the table. Kim had tried hard but given up on War and Peace, unable to keep up with all the characters. Joey had been reading the Bible, which got us talking about some of the stories and the apocrypha. Kim, Joey, and I talked about gardening. I had unexpectedly hit a topic of interest: Kim had worked on an experimental farm that did farm scouting. She recommended an author (whose name I forgot) who wrote a book about living with her family for a month on foods only available within a 50-mile radius.

Not bad for a Saturday, huh?