Hanami

Today we stayed in Fukuoka.  One of Matt's friends had invited us to a Hanami party at Maizuru Park in the city.  A Hanami party is basically an alcoholic picnic under the cherry blossoms to celebrate spring.  (Schools broke up for the Spring holiday on Friday).  Unfortunately the Cherry Blossoms aren't really out yet - there are one or two trees showing off their blooms, but on the whole, buds are tightly closed - we reckon in a week's time, the place will be looking beautiful.

Cherry blossoms

There were plenty of people out for picnics though and lots and lots of food stalls selling local delicacies (we almost were upset that we had bentos with us).  When we got there, there weren't that many people at the gathering (this was a translators meet up) but as the afternoon wore on, more and more arrived, including, to our lovely surprise, Joel with his children Leo  (7) and Hana (9), who we stayed with 4 years ago.  Ben, Matt's friend who invited us, also had children, Max (12) and Louisa (9), so Tom had plenty of friends to play with.  In fact we were very proud of him, because he was unusual in being the only fully Caucasian child in the group and it was he who made friends with the others.  Although to be honest, I don't think he even notices the fact he looks different from the Japanese, he certainly doesn't show any culture shock / shyness at all when it comes to people here.

Party time

Basically we lost Tom for the afternoon, this being a safe country, children have a lot more freedom than at home and are allowed to roam out of site of parents etc.  So Tom went with them, and do you know we didn't worry at all, because we knew that here nothing will happen, and also because he stands out in a crowd, he would be easily recognisable to anyone.  The afternoon was spent basking in the sun, meeting new people and drinking beer (well for Matt anyway, I unfortunately don't currently have the constitution for beer!)  Such a shame the blossoms weren't out or it would have been perfect.

Our 500 Series Shinkansen

We stayed a good 4 hours, Tom was having a ball playing with Max (shame we didn't get a photo but when we left he was nowhere to be seen) we have arranged to meet with them all again later in the holiday.

We then headed back to Hakata and as we had a spare hour before tea time, we thought Tom might like a quick ride on a Shinkansen.  We headed to the shinkansen tracks and found one going to Kokura in 10 minutes time.  We got to the platform to discover it was a 500 Series, a blue train - the one with the kids' play area at the front, with a mock up of the driver's cab so that kids can pretend they are driving the train.  How perfect.  Tom immediately went up and made it his own and 'drove' us all the way to Kokura (although at one time he was telling us the train was going backwards, which made us a little nervous!)

Kids at play on board the Shinkansen

We then switched platforms and got a Railstar back to Hakata.  We think we travelled 134 km in 34 minutes for no particular reason other than we could!  We then headed to a new restaurant street we found this morning and ended up in a 'Chinese' restaurant.  Tom had the children's plate, I had vegetables and noodles in soup and Matt garlic rice.  Then we headed back home for baths and bed.  A good day - we were all a little red from being in the sun all day.