The weeks seem to come around quite quickly and before I know it, I am into the following week…if you know what I mean! And so it is that week 20 has passed and we are well into week 21. I have no excuses, perhaps it is the warming weather that has distracted me. Yes, finally it seems we have jumped into 20+ degree days and quite suddenly. I’m not complaining, of course, it is truly wonderful to not need to be rugged up all the time – and the bliss of having the windows open; who knew? The other day I wore a t-shirt for most of the day!!!!!

There isn’t overly much to report on the carpark/building front. The statutory minimum period for the sign to be displayed has passed and no complaints :-). So, onto the next phase, which involves multiple levels of government, or their contractors, and many parts of the government. Last Saturday I had an appointment with the architect and builder to sign off on multiple pages of various applications – and I mean multiple. The architect was also taking a sensible approach of getting me to sign two copies of each, so that when he has to take them back and re-do certain bits, he will have a second set already signed. This was basically how he put it – to save time.

I was also told that this was the first part of the process; but I wasn’t told how many more parts there are. He also told me that he had decided to slightly change the front of the building so that the wooden slat cladding will be running vertically, not horizontally, as he had designed it. He had been advised by the relevant people in the government that assess these things, that the front did not look Japanese enough. He wasn’t overly happy about this, but it is a practical matter of being approved, or not.

So, we move forward, centimetre by centimetre. At least we are moving!

Now, I will return to the topic which proved to be very popular last time – hanami (blossom or flower viewing). Actually, it was the photos which were so popular. This even usurped the previous most popular topic – self-mummification! So, while the blossom is out there and people want to see it (I suppose that’s why there is a specific word for it), here are some more photos, including more geiko.

The interesting thing is how I am seeing more of them (geiko) at the moment. The spring weather and the blossom must draw them out into the open. You will also notice that there are some more photos of a geiko photo shoot. Same day, ie a Thursday (but one week later), same photographer and assistant, same place, just different geiko this time. I was wondering whether he was doing it for any particular purpose, such as advertising or a publication, or whether he was building up a portfolio of photos of geiko and blossom, or whether he just has a lot of money and he pays a geiko to do this once a week for his own enjoyment.

The other day, as I was walking down one of my other favourite streets, the one with the canal running down it which is lined with blossom trees (I have posted a number of photos of this street, including below), it was raining blossom petals and I was feeling very happy. Then I heard someone playing a harmonica. Turned out it was a middle aged man standing on his balcony, which was on the canal, playing with great enthusiasm and moving around as he played. It wasn’t that he was overly good that made it so wonderful, it was the passion with which he was executing it! I truly felt transported. Strangely, I felt like I was in France, yet I have never been there – I suspect it was reminiscent of stereotypical scenes from films that I was remembering. None-the-less, it was wonderful and made me feel even happier.

Onto a very different topic…14 April was the one year anniversary since the Kumamoto earthquake. Many of you may not have been aware of it, it certainly wasn’t of the scale of the Kobe earthquake or the Sendai/Fukushima area earthquake and tsunami, but it did cause significant damage and lives were lost. The two main shocks killed at least 50 people and injured about 3,000 others in total. There has been significant coverage of the aftermath in the media over the last week. While I had seen some footage of the damage at the time, it was a shock for me to see just how much destruction of housing and other buildings there was. There are now many, many empty blocks where once there were homes.

One of the buildings that was severely damaged, in fact the whole complex of buildings and walls, was the Kumamoto castle. We had been there a couple of times over the years – it was a beautiful castle complex. They showed photos of the work that has happened to date in the re-construction of the complex. Quite a bit has happened, but they are saying it could take up to 20 years to finish the work. I took some photos from the tv, but unfortunately my phone can take it’s time focusing, so it didn’t quite capture the full effect, hence, I have also borrowed a couple of photos which better capture what has happened – thank you Japan Times and Wikipedia.

Wikipediamy photomy photoJapan Times

Mainly, I was trying to show just how fastidious and orderly they have been in preparing for the re-construction. There are many long rows of rocks of all sizes and shapes, all grouped together in like sizes, shapes or where they came from, and all catalogued with an individual number on each rock. It looked like a giant, very intricate, jigsaw puzzle. The castle is a very significant drawcard for tourists to Kumamoto, which has a population of less than 750,000. I wonder how much it is affecting their economy, particularly those businesses which are based around the castle and which rely on tourists for most of their income.

I am going to leave you on that quite sombre note with a photo of a red tulip and some other flowers, just to show that there are, in fact, some other plants flowering at the moment, including lots of tulips.