Readers may recall that the extended Sushi on a Stick household (including visiting aunts and grandmother) actually tested the beach out a couple of weeks back, before we realised that it had yet to be officially opened, and before Ruby’s school handed down its edict about students not being allowed to swim yet. (Perhaps it was out transgression that prompted the crackdown.) The sun was hot and the water was beautiful but the beach was… totally deserted. Of course. It wasn’t open yet.

It is a lovely beach, carefully sculpted into a crescent shape and provided with nice shady areas, steps for sitting, showers for washing, thousands of drink vending machines and a little stall called Casa del Mare (except that the last bit’s broken off so it looks more like Casa del Mai… the House of Never?). As Sister Rose remarked, it seemed like such a waste to have a beautiful beach sitting there not being used.

But this being Japan, the opening of the beach requires an official ceremony. Thus it was that on Saturday we had a stage complete with PA, a row of seats for the inevitable phalanx of distinguished guests, and various traditional cultural dragons and bells and elaborately dressed priests and other hangers-on:

Eleni and I got roped into carrying a small cultural thing over a distance of about 20 metres to the stage area. What a massive contribution!

As part of the ceremonial proceedings, Eleni’s wadaiko drumming group was invited to perform. This was her first performance in a public arena so she was rather nervous, but it all went well. Here’s some blatantly partisan video evidence:

A photographer from the local council asked me whether it was OK to put Eleni in their glossy magazine monthly magazine, so this could be the start of her media career in Japan.

While Eleni was performing I ended up standing next to the mayor, and this called for a photo of course.

So I think we’ve really raised our profile here in sleepy Mihara. AND we’re free to go to the beach at last!

The other major issue is choice. Whereas we expect our kids to get involved a range of different activities, the Japanese prefer to concentrate on one, with maybe another (non-school) activity on the weekend for good measure. I suppose you could argue that the Japanese approach, which effectively outsources the after-school activities to the school, is much easier than the Australian model, which inevitably involves ferrying the offspring back and forth across town in the pre-dinner timeslot. And I should point out in fairness that the club activities are not strictly compulsory (one of Ruby’s soccer compatriots, for instance, has opted out), although there is a strong expectation that you will be part of it. What with the Japanese insistence on group harmony. And especially in Ruby’s case, given that there are so few students at the school and given that she is keen to fit in.

As with the initial shock of the long school days, I suspect that the person who is having most trouble coming to grips with the concept is me. The kids themselves are already relishing their new Japanese-style independence (see here) and there is no doubt that the experience will be good for them. All the same, I can’t help feeling a tad peeved sometimes as dusk starts to fall and my children are still not back home…

• A single cherry blossom is not beautiful by itself; you have to have lots of them all together to get a beautiful display. (Moral: In order to achieve something great you all have to work together.)

• The beauty of the cherry blossoms signals the onset of spring, but first the trees have to make it through the harsh winter. (Moral: In order to experience joy you have to suffer hardship first.)

• The first cherry blossom to bloom waits until all the others have fallen before it too drops from the tree. (Moral: Be considerate and look out for others. Don’t just go dropping off the tree as the mood takes you.)

It seems that the cherry blossom season is a key source of philosophical inspiration for many. Or it could be that most people see the CB season as nothing more than an excuse to organise publicly sanctioned outdoor drinking marathons, and drunkeness of course brings out the inner philosopher in us all.

I have to say that this year I was feeling a bit underwhelmed by the cherry blossoms. Possibly this is because the CB trees near our place are not of the brilliant white variety (grasshopper didn’t realise that there are many different species of cherry blossom) but a sort of subdued pinky grey, and therefore not quite as beautiful as they potentially could be. In my humble opinion. The self-seeded ones that you see dotted around on the mountain, meanwhile, are even less striking, little more than dirty pink smudges in amongst the green.

However all this changed on Saturday, when my friend Mr Nishihara took us up Mt Ryuo (the one that I climbed at six o’clock one morning; read about it here) for a picnic under the CB trees.

And I have to report, it was absolutely stunning. There we were on top of the world on a glorious spring day, admiring the contrast of the sheer white blossoms against the shimmering azure of the sea far below… so good that it went straight into the Top Five of Nature Views. With a bullet. Yes, I’m a convert, a born-again Cherry Blossom believer, I’ve seen the light, and I’m right now I’m working on some home-spun cherry blossom philosophy of my own, so watch this space for an enlightening Cherry Blossom Maxim.

Just to drive the point home, I’m going to leave you with a select few of my favourite cherry blossom photos from Saturday:

Despite living less than five minutes’ walk from the finest genuine hot spring facility in the region, the veritable Mihara Onsen, I am ashamed to report that it has taken us nearly three months to register our first visit. Felix in particular has been very keen, never having been to an onsen in his life, although I discovered later that this was as much to do with the table tennis table upstairs as anything else.

So down the road we trooped, stripped off with all the other blokes, washed and scrubbed ourselves to a shiny gloss in the individual shower cubicles, then tried out the various baths on offer. Because there isn’t just one bath for you to relax in; there are about seven, and that’s only on one side. The other side of the facility (the men’s and women’s sides are swapped around every day) apparently has eleven. You’ve got the main bath with murky brown water at 43° — the genuine onsen water that’s piped up from 2,000 metres below the surface or whatever; then another murky brown bath at a slightly more reasonable 41° C; a plain hot water bath; an electric massage bath that passes a live current through your body (a bit spooky); a series of different water jet massage baths that pummel different parts of your poor hapless naked body; a foot massage bath where you sit on a chair and it has a go at your feet; massage showers that come at you from all sides; and even some pod-like things that you sit inside with only your head poking out.

And all the while you get glorious views of the Seto Inland sea and neighbouring islands out the massive side windows. Or you would if you didn’t go down at night when it’s pitch black, as we did.

But with all those big windows, couldn’t people see you all milling around inside? Well no, not unless they were on a passing ferry or ship with a powerful set of binoculars. (Come to think of it, maybe ships’ captains do indeed swivel the binoculars around for a bit of a perve as they steam into port. Although you’d hope that they’d be concentrating on more important things, like avoiding large obstacles.)

There is actually a window right next to the ledge facing the road down the hill, the one we drive down every day, where you can sit and display your bottom to the world if you so wish. On my very first day in Sunami, as I was coming down the hill with Kobayashi-san the real estate agent, we saw an old guy striking this very pose. Sadly, despite our best efforts, Felix and I have been unable to spot any Public Bottom Displays. So on our next visit we’ll have go during the day so we can do our very own Father and Son Bottom Display. After all, it’s a male bonding thing.

And Mihara Onsen certainly beats our tiny bath here at home:

The order of events is as follows: first of all the naked men all assemble at the ancient traditional cultural 7-11 at the bottom (geddit?) end of town.

Then they head up the road chanting and carrying a tub of something on a podium, stopping along the way to drink copious amounts of sake kindly put out by shops and houses en route.

When they get to the river, they all jump in and splash about for a bit, then jump out again five minutes later. Bear in mind that the ambient temperature is something below zero at this stage.

Finally they head up to the local shrine where they hang about in the freezing cold waiting for all the other Naked Men to join them from various other places. Some of them come all the way over from the parallel NM festival at Okayama, about an hour and a half away up the road (which incidentally is documented in the excellent book by Brian Thacker called The Naked Man Festival).

The festival culminates in a massive bunfight whereby a couple of hundred naked men are fighting for a little bit of red stick that is thrown down from above. There’s a reason for this of course; the little red bit of stick is worth about $1000.  There was lots of pushing and shoving but nobody got hurt and it was all very cultural.

So we’ll be going back next year for sure, but I reckon I’ll be wearing another couple of layers; it was sooooooo cold up at the shrine. And when I got home, still frozen to the bone, I celebrated with the ultimate luxury: a nice long shower. Because there are no water restrictions in Japan. Yet.

Click here for more photos.

Basically there was a super long line of fairground stalls such as old-fashioned lucky dips and shooting galleries, stalls selling swap cards and plastic toys, stalls selling all kinds of food and drink, and a haunted house. We had fun wandering up and down the street for a couple of hours with Yusaku and Ayasa.

Here’s some photos to prove it.

Felix scores his very own high-powered rifle at one of the stalls

So many people, so many things to eat

Ruby and Ayasa outside the haunted house, with Yusaku and Felix (light-bulb head) in the foreground.

Note the mask to the left: Man With Germs.

Meanwhile, for those with too much time on their hands, there are more photos on my flickr page.

It was a lovely walk up the mountain, starting in the pitch dark and with the light gradually growing as we made our way up to the top just in time for daybreak. And this is the view we saw from the viewing platform at the top.

When we got there:

Start of sunrise:

A couple of minutes later:

What a great experience. And now I finally have some decent photos for my computer screen and phone wallpaper, so it was all worth it.

After the bonfire, the kids had lunch in the tents.

Because Sunami doesn’t have a large public space, the Tondo festival for the local area is held at Sunami Primary School, in combination with the school’s own version. This provides a wonderful opportunity for all the old folk of the district to get together with the kids and teach them stuff that nobody knows how to do any more these days, like pounding and moulding the mochi rice cakes, weaving straw snow shoes and playing with spinning tops. Naturally the new parents in town were only too keen to get amongst the Culture, as you can see here:

The grade sixes were responsible for pounding the mochi too, so Ruby got to have a go:

Once the bonfires died down, we all toasted our rice cakes over the embers on super-long bamboo stakes and shared them with the kids. It was great fun and an excellent way for the kids to get to know their new classmates.

Click here for more photos.