Kawazu Sakura Festival

A couple of weeks ago we had a relaxing weekend away in Kawazu for the sakura festival there. We had to get up early to catch a train to Izu and I found frost covering my bike so it was a very chilly cycle into the city! The train ride was very picturesque, passing mount fuji in all its splendour, and some snow-covered countryside north of Izu. As it wound around the coast, it alternately ducked through tunnels and overlooked quiet seaside tourist towns.

The sakura festival was amazing, with all the trees in full bloom. There were a lot of tourists from all over Japan, mostly oyaji and obasan (middle-aged men and women)! We had lunch at a local izakaya where the obasan workers were frantically making enough food for all the tourists. It was so funny for Chihiro to listen to them shouting at each other and using very coarse language.

There were a lot of food and gift stalls where we sampled sweets and ocha for free, and for some reason there was also a trained monkey show!I felt a bit sorry for the monkey, because it was so perfectly trained and obedient...I hope it's treated well. We found these poor melted snowmen who had been stabbed to death with discarded yakitori skewers. Building two little snowmen next to each other is a bit of a craze here at the moment because two lovers from a very popular soap opera did it. Notice how everyone behind the snowmen are more interested in the food stalls than the cherry trees!

We tried not to get too distracted by the food and entertainment, and spent some time just appreciating the beautiful cherry trees.

Initially I was tempted by the sign saying there was a free natural spring footbath, but given the number of people crowded in it, I thought I'd be better off without the tinea! Another strange thing I saw, was dolphin meat in the markets. I haven't seen it anywhere else in Japan, so it can't be common, but I wonder if it's legal...

The Japanese Inn we stayed at was quite nice. We had a massive seafood dinner there, with so many different things like whole roasted squid, slimy seaweed (wakame), and many types of sashimi. After dinner we went out to see the cherry trees lit up at night, and came back to relax in the hotel onsen (natural spring bath).