White Noise, Red Sun: Cherry blossoms ("sakura")

White Noise, Red Sun

A little chunk of the web dedicated to keeping our friends, family, fans of Mike's noise and anyone else who for whatever reason cares updated on our year abroad in Ichinomiya, Hyogo, Japan.

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Cherry blossoms ("sakura")



My spirits are lifted again and again by the natural beauty surrounding us. This morning I went on a long walk around town, and found this tree at the corner of a farm road. Spring is here ;)
A popular way to celebrate spring is to get together at a spot famous for cherry blossoms, and have a picnic. It's simply called "hanami" flower viewing. Next week we're getting together with the English conversation club/cooking exchange club. Quick!!; Please post any ideas you have for yummy American picnic food I could bring for the event.

Here's a picture of my lovely workplace, Iwa koko, which is lonely at the moment because of spring break. In a week or so, classes should be back in full swing, so this courtyard won't be so emply anymore...



-Colleen

posted by Shiflet @ 5:03 PM 5 comments  

5 Comments:

At 9:57 AM, pinkmydear said...

Sounds like fun. You could make Ants on a Log and Tuna/Ham/Egg/Chicken salad sandwiches. Or peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Or potato salad or macaroni salad. Oooh, or cucumber salad (cucumber and onion with vinegar and sugar). Or cole slaw. And lemonade.

I am so ready for cookouts.

 
At 3:02 AM, Wendy Jones said...

Watermelon! You could carve out the inside and fill it with fruit salad. Or you could do little wrap sandwiches. Or you could do an "Oriental" brocolli slaw salad. Or some kind of warm layered dip like cheddar/vidalia (with potato chips or ritz-type crackers), or a taco dip with tortillas, or a great salmon dip/spread that I could give you the recipe for if you were interested. There's always that cheddar squash bake I made for your going-away picnic!

 
At 1:51 PM, michelle said...

macaroni and cheese (unless they're sick of that by now), potato salad is delish and by far my favorite picnic food, chicken salad sandwiches, pink lemonade (you can use grenadine to color it if you don't have/like food color), salsa and chips, guacamole (but avocados prob not too available), ICED COFFEE (if it's warm out), iced tea (sweetened or un), iced tea mixed with lemonade, do they have olives there? you could make an olive spread. wine. beer.

 
At 1:53 PM, marlene said...

I nominate Devilled Eggs as the ultimate American picnic food... but do you guys do eggs? I'm also a fan of apples with PB, and cheese and crackers. If you can find decent cheese. Yeah, these are my "easy and fast" picnic solutions.

 
At 8:00 PM, Mike and Colleen said...

I'm salvating all over myself here! You all rule!! I love seeing the diversity of picnic foods all in one place ;) I'm just gonna have to bring a few different snacks, cause the choices are just too good.

Amazingly enough, cheese is probably the hardest thing out of everything to find. Avacados, olives, potato chips- no problem! Good cheese- maybe an hour away.

-C

 

Post a Comment