Sorry for being quite so whiny last week… We all have our ups and downs, and I’m feeling nicely up again, thanks to the last weekend! There were lots of things to do, and I feel perfectly energised.
On Friday, the weather was nice and the skies were blue, and the sakura were blooming… I did not go far, just around the corner to the river, but here’s a photo of this year’s sakura at Takanogawa:
Saturday was even more busy: First, I went to an exhibition about the faith of Kitano Tenmangu. A friend had leftover tickets, and I learnt about Sugawara no Michizane, a renowned Japanese scholar who lived in the Heian era and who is today revered as the God of learning (and enshrined in Kitano Tenmangu). A great number of treasures of the shrine were on display and even though I couldn’t read any of the descriptions, lest the centuries old documents, it was very interesting.
Then, I went to the Art Dive Festival, where a great number of young artists, artisans, and craftswomen were exhibiting their arts and crafts. There were lots of manga-style drawings, which are not really my thing, but also lovely other things like jewellery, crafts from paper and textiles… I ended up buying lovely earrings after going back and forth on them for three times or so… I’m happy about them, so that’s a plus.
And today, I received word from another friend that she will come over to Japan at the end of May, that makes three people already I haven’t seen in a while and will have great fun catching up with. And they will all come within a single month – it’s wonderful!