I (sort of) Heart さくら.

So now it's totally nearly the end of April and the Sakura blossoms have come and gone. At one point last year when trying to hatch an escape plan I decided that I would stick around in Japan at least until I experienced the legendary お花見。The Kanji for Hanami are 花 meaning flower and 見 which means watch or see or look. Put them together and you get the basic idea of Hanami - going to the park and looking at cherry blossoms. Essentially anyway. I wouldn't go as far as say it is sooo much more, but it is more. A little bit more anyway. You do go to the park, and you do look at cherry blossoms. But you also get pissed. I certainly don't need cherry-blossoms in be inattendance for that that to happen, but they are maybe the gayest flowers on the planet so it kind of helps. Before I came to Japan, Kylie gave me a fantastic book called Hokkaido Highway Blues, and it tells the tale of a guy teaching English in Japan who decides to follow the line of Sakura north from the couthern most point of Japan to the most northen point in Hokkaido. The hottest part of the book is that he hitch-hikes the whole way (and tips from the book provided inspiration for my own little foray into hitch-hiking). The second hottest part of the book is that the sakura actually bloom in a line across the country and move nothways like an advancing army; the English name for this is called the Cherry-blossom Front. Apparently anyways. So there you have it. In Japan there are Sakura. In April they bloom. You get drunk in the park. Fun.

Ueno Park in Tokyo.

Sharon in the bottom corner is so ready for SARS. Michelle in the middle just likes Michael Jackson.

Everybody needs a favourite cemetary. This is mine, across the road from Toyko Tower.

Tokyo Tower from the cemetary across the road.

Who would have guessed there are people in the world who like tarps as much, if not more than my Dad. You could cover a thousand trailers with those bad-boys, couldn't you Dad.

A street in Sagamihara, the city where I live.

Gay.

Gayest. This is a sign that is hanging in the make-up section of the department store next to work. This is not make-up for men. It's normal make-up, but it's being advertised for men too. Fucking Jesus. Lots of people in the world are a few steps behind when squirreling in the Forest of Sexuality/Gender Equity (as opposed to the Suicide Forest). But it seems that the guy in the poster is squirreling around in a different forest all together!