Today I drove down to Nagasaki to buy some used books from another JET that had posted them for sale on the email list. You might ask yourself what possessed me to drive nearly an hour and a half to the city, on single lane roads and itty-bitty side streets, just to pick up some books. Well even if the books weren't of the really interesting type (including a Korean phrasebook, woo!), today it would have been worth it for the drive alone.
I'd caught the hint of spring hiding about before, but today was the first day that it actually stepped out and said "hey!" Cool enough to need a light jacket, but with the sun was shining enough for me to be able to roll down the windows and really enjoy it. Trees are beginning to bud everywhere, garden shops and front steps are packed with flowers, and even on my way out of the neighborhood I'm greeted by a long row of clover lining the road with big ole yellow flowers in full bloom.
Of course, the coming of spring is synonymous with the blossoming of the Japanese cherry trees, which has yet to occur. Everyone with a TV should be readily apprised of that event though, as there are forecasts every night on the news, chronicling the northern movements of the "cherry blossom front", the wave of the blossom's first blooms.
Unfortunately spring also heralds the end of the school year here in Japan, which runs from April to March, which means that very shortly I will be saying goodbye all of my third year junior high students. My older kindergarteners will be moving up to elementary school, which means I go from seeing them once a week to maybe once every month or so if I'm lucky.
Japanese teachers rotate every few years or so as well, so that adds even more people to say goodbye to, including some of the teachers that I have grown the closest to.
Basically I can frolic and be merry in the lovely springtime weather I just can't do it with all of the people that I have grown to know and love thus far.
On a completely unrelated note, I was also visited by two guys who wanted wanted to talk to me about Jesus Christ. I feel like that would not happen anywhere else in Japan except for Nagasaki, for historical reasons the only prefecture with Christian influence in its history. Their material also apparently comes from the "Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society" out of Pennsylvania. A little touch of home almost?
tired "ephemeral nature of life" cherry blossom cliché from the future,
-greg.
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