Hanami and the Misadventures Thereafter

Hanami is an event that signifies the beginning of many things here in Japan – for me, they became the beginning of my misadventures of the week (last week).

The cherry blossoms are still in full bloom in many places in Iwaki, but most of the cherry blossom celebrations happened the weekend before last. These celebrations are called “hanami,” where basically, people go to sit beneath the cherry blossoms with food and drink and enjoy the beauty of the flowers.

I went to one of these celebrations, which was organized by the international association at city hall – basically, some people at city hall suggested that we all go to a park together. It was a bit more complicated than this however, as the park apparently gets quite busy, so some of us arrived early, about 10am to reserve a spot with tarps and blankets. The place where we met was more extravagant than I expected: the park was actually somewhat of an amusement park with old derelict rides and food vendors and was decorated with sponsored lanterns. When we arrived, there were already several Japanese people drunk with their families; one guy who seemed particularly inebriated was dressed up in a Draemon costume complete with face paint – although the paint was starting to run and held a “why so serious?” likelihood to the Joker.

The day itself was actually quite fun. Cherry blossoms are very symbolic of the new year’s beginnings. The cherry blossoms usually mark the beginning of new jobs, the new school year, and outdoor social events begin once again after the anti-social coldness of winter. It was good to see many people who I haven’t seen for quite a while. After an afternoon and evening of Japanese snacks and Ozeki One Cup, before I knew it, it was almost midnight. People were still in the park at this time and there were a few lights that gave illumination to the blossoms.

Many people from our group had already left for an evening of karaoke, but me and a friend decided instead on a hot bowl of ramen before heading home. We had parked our bikes on either side of the park, so we agreed to meet each other at the Nissan dealership on the road nearby. We met as promised, although, I had misplaced my bike key at some point in the day and was without wheels.

At this point, you may be wondering how many embarrassing stories I can possibly post on this blog, but yes, this is another one of ‘those’ posts.

I was feeling a bit bummed about the situation, so Don, being the kind person he is, agrees to go back to the park to help me look for the key. We have friends that live close by, so we stopped in and borrowed a lantern to help us look. The light wasn’t good though, and we looked without any success. I even jumped over the fence to examine the train tracks beneath the sky-pedalling ride that we went on earlier, but still, no dice.

Our friends, the lantern owners, had gone to a bar that was on our way home, so we stopped in to return their light before walking to a ramen shop downtown. The shop is one of my favourites because they let you squeeze fresh garlic into your bowl with the garlic presses handy at each seat. I usually go for about 3 or 4 cloves before popping a whole one into my mouth for fun. I won’t be kissing anybody for another few months, so I enjoy myself while I can.

After ramen I walked home without my bike.

The next day I searched multiple times through all of my clothes and phoned people asking them if they found my key in any of the tarps/blankets we sat on the night before, but still no key. I phoned my supervisor in the hopes that the school might have a spare key – or that they may have some other solution to my problem; I couldn’t have been the only irresponsible ALT that this has ever happened to.

I forgot to mention that the night before, I ended up walking my bike to a Mini-Stop convenience store, where I had hoped in a last ditch effort, that my key had fallen out of my pocket while reaching for my wallet to pay for my Ozeki One-cups. They didn’t know where my key was either, so I ended up leaving my bike there. My supervisor suggested that I check with the Mini-Mart people this next morning to make sure it was okay to leave the bike there for a day or two while we figured out what to do with it. I had already decided to walk back to the park to look for the key in daylight and the Mini Stop was close by.

At this point, I should also clarify that nobody in Japan locks their bikes “to” anything. Instead, most bikes just come with a collar attached to the back of the bike, where, when locked, immobilizes the rear wheel. Hence, by walking the bike on its front tire, I was able to get it to the Mini Stop.

After checking with the clerks at the store, they assured me that they did not find my key and that it was okay to leave my bike there, I walked back up to the park to look one more time. It was noon, but people were already set up on their tarps with food and drink. I bothered a few people with my bad Japanese, who were in the area we occupied last night, but with no success. Some other friends were having their hanami event later that day, so I hung around and took photos before meeting them for more hanami.

The next day I was at one of my visit schools, which is about a 40-minute bike-ride from my apartment -- and there are no buses. It’s also about a $20 cab ride each way. I managed to borrow a bike from another friend for what turned out to be a very wet ride. It poured rain all morning and the zipper on my bag opened while I was riding, so I spent the day wearing wet jogging pants; I also didn’t bring a change of socks.

During my day at work, in a moment of sulkiness within my damp clothes, a teacher phoned me for directions to where I had left my bike. He said that he wanted to drive the school’s truck to retrieve it and bring it back to my base school. Once at the school, he would try to “break” the lock. Now, I grew up with a mechanical engineer for a father, so when this teacher used the words “break the lock,” I cringed slightly. I would prefer the words “cut the lock” or “dismantle the lock”; as it is, I can only picture my teacher with a screwdriver and a hammer – or maybe some kind of heavy rock, pummelling my bike until it is able to move once again. I try to persuade him to let the school’s handyman to take a look at it, but also try to brush his choice of words off as a possible vocabulary misnomer.

The following day I was back at my base school, which I often walk to as a change of pace, where my teacher told me that he could not get the lock off and that maybe I should talk to one of the school’s maintenance staff, but it is also the first week of lessons for me and I end up too busy to do anything for the next couple of days.

It ends up being Thursday when I go to another visit school, but this one by bus. I ended up very lucky this day for a couple of reasons. The first was that as I walked out the door of my apartment in the morning, I realized that I may have spent all of the cash in my wallet to buy groceries the night before and that I would have to run back inside to grab some change. The other fortunate moment was when I decided to check my wallet, there was in fact a gaping cavity where all of my funds had been depleted, but, because there were no extraneous amounts of cash to obstruct my view, I was able to catch a glimpse within the bottom crease of my wallet, where I found a glint from the toothy smile of my prodigal bicycle key returned to me.