Pastime in the rainy season

Chiho is busy with Umeshigoto for this year. Umeshigoto literally means Ume=plum and Shigoto = work in Japanese and it is a traditional seasonal event for Japanese people to make plum wine, plum juice or pickled plum in rainy season. Rainy season in Japanese is Tsuyu and it is 梅雨 in Kanji character. And 梅 …

Tsuyu …. Rainy season is not fun at all but…

  As you may already know, it is the middle of  rainy season in Japan. This year it has been raining a lot, Tokyo has the most rain in the last 1/4 century… Oh, just too much… we look outside of the window with the bitterness when we need to cancel the tour. ~~~~~~ Rainy …

Hanami – Cherry blossom forecast in 2010 spring

“Hanami” literally means “flower viewing” in Japanese. Although it means mainly cherry blossom viewing nowadays, traditionally “flower” means plum flower. And ancient Japanese people are said to enjoy plum blossom viewing  and they wrote many poems about it. This year the plum flower is blooming a bit earlier than usual, at many places on our bike tour we can enjoy its red …