All of the roads and alleys are scented with blooming flowers; there's so much cement everywhere that people make an incredible effort to make sure that every available nook and cranny is bursting with beautiful greenery and explosive rainbows of colour. All along the main roads the neat azaleas that have been green up to now are a riot of pink and white and fuscia. It's starting to feel like summer might actually come, and it might actually be really hot.

Right now McDonalds is featuring a green tea milkshake in honor of Golden Week-- could I be any happier? Golden Week has brough an influx of rowdy young Japanese, ready for some 'enjoy time', so propositions from strangers have stepped up a notch. Come on... I do not look like a hostess! I'm so buttoned down (thanks to Nova dress code) that I could pass for a mormon maybe, but not a hostess...

Didn't make it to the festival in time; it was all over by the time I got out of here. But Boy's Day is on the 5th and I have that off, so let's hope I can take part in the festivities! Already the big carp windsocks are sailing in the breeze-- one for each male member of a household. The biggest one I've seen so far was about 20 feet long, and decorated with gold along each scale. They are quite spectacular! You can buy mini-carp windsocks-on-a-stick with candy attached to a plastic cup, decorated with your favorite anime characters, like Pikachu or Anpanman (a very popular superhero made out of bread).

Last night was Joanna's welcome party, and little Mari's farewell party. She worked at the downtown Nova, and is much loved by both the teachers and the other Nova Japanese staff. She's leaving Nova to be a shufu (housewife)... it's still common for women to leave work once they have gotten married so that they can focus on making babies and caring for their home. I think that it's excellent, as long as it's what you really want to do. We had the party at Domo Domo, everybody's favorite izakaya (like an upscale pub) and it got quite rowdy: Bani did a very accurate hacka (spelling?), the Maori war dance/song... all of the Nova Japanese staff (women) were groping Joanna's G-Cup breasts and squealing with awe and excitement, Neil was going about to everyone and making them take shots of sake, and I managed to catch a glass with my skirt and break it --everyone's in stockinged feet, of course! Once the glass was cleared up, group photos were taken and we paid our bill, about 12 of us moved to the Karaoke Box next door with our party, and rented a room. Tambourines were provided and it wasn't long before we were bouncing on the couches and dancing around the little room like dervishes, singing Madonna and 80's tunes and sad Japanese love songs. Best song of the night: The JapSpanglish version of La Vida Loca, sung by one of the Japanese staff and Bani. Worst song of the night: Jon's rendition of Like a Virgin. Sorry Jon-- you do suck. The cool thing is that you keep doing it anyway... I've got to cut a cd of all the Nova teachers singing before I come back to Canada!