A very cool Japanese tradition is to go see the cherry blossoms in the spring. Many people go have picnics under the trees, and there are also lots of festivals. I went with five other ALTs down to Mito over the weekend to check out a music/cherry blossom festival, and it was awesome.

I live about a 40 minute walk from the train station, and Mito is about a 25 minute train ride away. Of course, once we got to Mito, we had no idea where we were supposed to go, so we just kind of wandered for a bit. We found a nice lake with gorgeous cherry blossom trees, and lots of people were out picnicking or taking pictures. We also found a shrine that we explored a bit, but in the end, we did find the festival.

There were lots of food booths set up and I got a very yummy melon crepe. There was also a stage for the performers. I only stayed for a couple sets because it was really cold, and I didn't have a jacket. As it was, I still got back to my station after dark. Thankfully, it's not a complicated path to my apartment.

The music itself was pretty cool. The first group was actually a few dancers that reminded me of the ones from the Hari Krishna Festival of Colors. After that was a very indie sounding group that had lots of cool instruments that were very Japanese, and a couple that sounded like those you hear in Australian outback-y type songs. After that was this awesome group that did all english songs - Superstitious by Stevie Wonder and I Feel the Earth Move by Carole King, just to name a couple. But they were great and so much fun.