Monday, April 13, 2015

Sakura Matsuri + Sunday Date

I love festivals!
 
The food, the nature, the culture, the food, and THE FOOD!
 
Japanese festival food is probably everybody's favorite part and the main reason that people even go in the first place, haha! I am very picky, duh, and since yakisoba is my favorite food EVER, I must admit--Kanto area's yakisoba sucks. Give me my saucy, wild yakisoba from Kansai area ANYDAY.
 
My town's cherry blossom festival holds a very special place in my heart, it's was thanks to this festival last year that Ryosuke and I were able to realize our mutual feelings for each other and started dating a fews day later! Ever since then, I have vowed that I will without a doubt go and make sure that I can enjoy the cherry blossoms with him.
 

 
I just happened to get a sweet selfie stick for less than ten bucks the day before and was just getting used to how to use it with the crowding.
 
So Ryosuke lives about twenty minutes away from the park, which is up on the main part of the town..up a huge steep hill! Considering everyone in Gunma drives, it would only be obvious that we should walk instead of using one of our cars to attempt to find a parking and drive around in circles. I am trying to get into some sort of shape since I do absolutely nothing active apart from going up and down stairs at work--at the very least a hike-like walk is completely necessary. On the brightest side, it was a beautiful day and breezy enough to not be super hot. It really only takes from 15-20 minutes and with a bottle of water, I survied!
 
We arrived at the festival about an hour after it had begun, and typical Japanese style it was already getting quite crowded and fully underway. The first thing that I was super craving more than anything was grilled steak on a stick! ハラミ/harami (tender meat from the middle)!! I used to think that カルビ/karubi(short rib) meat was the best, but the amount of fat makes it a bit--not as appetizing for me but the ハラミ is were the thick, delicious meat is at. Ryosuke got it last year and I followed in my drunk suit, for it to soon become my favorite and most looked forward to snack.
 
UNFORTUNATELY, for Ryosuke, his カルビ was...under cooked and we were a bit too far and scared of the man who served it to really say anything. Fortunately for me, mine was perfect, perfect, but I didn't want to go back to get more since I felt bad Ryosuke had such a bad experience. :(
 
 
 
After that sad bit, we passed through the other side of the park and I bought the most delicious chocolate filled--pastry and attempted to buy yakisoba from a stand which I thought would give me saucy noodles... Only to be disappointed some more by a simple mistake on my part. I decided to get in line too late, I turned around and another woman with her kids got right in front of me--and swiped the last noodles... The woman behind the counter proceeded to very rudely tell us to go somewhere else and that there were plenty of other yakisoba stands... I rarely deal with rude people in Japan, and Ryosuke made a good point of telling her how patiently we waited as we walked away. I finished eating my chocolate filled delicacy and stared at the trees to calm down from a possible blow up on the rude lady...
 
 
 
We made our way back to the main festival side of the park and made our way to a booth that was selling Grilled Chicken, Herb Sausage and claimed DELICIOUS Yakisoba. The booth next to it was selling 小籠包(Chinese soup buns) and pretty flower ice cream. The grilled chicken, was--a bit on the simple side with a good spicy sauce, but the sausage was a bit TOO herb filled and the yakisoba was--not so great. I really wish that I can go back to Kansai area during a festival and get my hands on that saucy deliciousness I have been craving soon...
 
 
Either way, it was a really nice time, and for a festival in my little town the food was pretty good. As with the way to the festival, the way from the festival was also involving the hill. But I feel like the way down was not only a hellova lot easier, but we took a nice long break on some stairs to take pictures of the beautiful view with my selfie stick!
 




Since it only took a few hours out of the day, Ryosuke wanted to help me and make my shelf that I want for underneath my desk to put stuff and leave at school instead of crowd up my tiny apartment. I had no idea that in the main home store in the area you could actually build whatever it was you needed using the supplies you just bought and renting the equiptment. So long as you bring your own materials, just fill out a form and it's free to use as you please.
 


I tend to forget that Japan doesn't have big houses with garages, and that a place like this would be most definitely necessary for those who need/want to build something of your own but don't have the space. We are both pretty new to the build-it-yourself world and were a bit sheepish to the whole experience. Funnily enough, I bought the wrong size of screw and the available driver was crap. But thankfully for us, an experienced builder was in the room as well and lent us his driver as well as gave us better screws (so we gave him our too big ones).

 
Like I said we aren't the handiest pair...so it came out a bit lopsided...woops. I'll take a picture once I've figured out how to fix that problem. Either way we enjoyed the experience and like with the other shelf, we did it together and had fun, so the outcome can be a bit--not perfect.
 
After an hour of hard labor, we were starving and luckily for us only about ten minutes away was the delicious hamburg restaurent 'びっくりドンキー', it's a 'Western' style restaurant, probably supposed to be modeled after hamburger places--with a Japanese twist as per hamburg. A great place for just meat and rice at a fairly reasonable price. Then to my happy suprise, the current campaign menu included Hokkaido ice cream! I chose for the fanciest plate including rare cheesecake and A SUPER DELICIOUS waffle! I'm not a fan of cheesecake so Ryosuke ate that for me and I enjoyed the strawberrys and waffle.
 

 
 
Another lovely date weekend!
 
Thanks for reading!

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