A Japanese BBQ and Ashikaga Frower Park

Spring has fully arrived in Ashikaga and the heat is certainly being turned up. in Japan. After surviving through the winter months, its now time to deal with the summer's oppressive heat and humidity. It's also been raining a lot more, we'll have about 4 great days, then about 2 days of non-stop rain. Anyway, no complaints here ... its certainly better than the winter, especially riding around. Although, summer does bring its share of dangers ... like low flying bats and giant mutant-like insects, that crash into your face while riding. Anyway, the following are a few shots of the spring bloom.

You guys must be sick of seeing flowers right!!! Well, brace yourselves, there's a lot more in this post.

Another one here.

This was a cool tree, initially I thought it was one tree that produced both pink and white blossoms, but on closer inspection it was actually two trees. Still the effect is cool.

April was also the celebration of John's birthday, hot on the heels of Mike's birthday about 2 weeks previous. Being sad and believing that people wouldn't come to his party after Mike's, we decided to organise a surprise BBQ for John. I had to let him in on the secret the night before as John tends to sleep through daylight hours. So, I had to ensure that he would rock up. Everyone loves a BBQ and we'd hadn't really had one during our time in Japan. I mean, being an Aussie and not having a BBQ for almost a year is unheard of.




Mike and Clarence dutifully bought a little BBQ and the guests supplied the food. John was certainly surprised by the BBQ and had a great time. Even suggesting that we should do it more often.

Mike was in charge of making sure the food was cooked and not burnt.

Look at all the little delectable things that we had ... hamburgers, sausages, chicken, even vegetables and beef. It was dericious!

We picked a little park near Mike's place to hold this magnificent event.

Some of the ladies enjoying their time.

The weather god's were shining on us this day ... perfecto!

Mike and Catherine on a quick spin in the peddling vehicle.

And then the Birthday boy received his cake.

Look how chuffed he is. The cake was good and a great time was had by all! Good times!

Ashikaga is also home to Ashikaga Flower Park (or as the Japanese would say "Ashikaga Frower Park"), where each year during Golden week, hundreds of people from all over flock to see their giant Wisteria trees in bloom. Ashikaga is apparently home to the biggest wisteria trees in all of Japan. It's such a big that, the national papers even write stories about it.




Waiting on the train stations during the Golden week days were crazy, I never seen so many people in Ashikaga before. Me and the boys decided to visit it one Wednesday afternoon on our half day, not a real manly thing to do ... but hey, its something to do. Plus we managed to avoid some of the massive crowds visiting. It would normally cost about 300yen ($3) to get into the Flower Park any other time of the year, however, during the Wisteria season, it would cost you 1600yen ($16) for admission ... Wow, that's quite a hike. Anyway, the pictures follow and there's not much story, so sit back and enjoy.

Ashikaga Flower Park.

The pyramid of flowers

One of the giant wisteria trees ... there's about 3 of them in this park.

Apparently, your not meant to touch the blossoms but I'm not Japanese ... so suck!

All around the wisteria flowers were these giant bumble bees ... probably about the side of our 50 cent coin. Needless to say, I didn't want to use my own hand to give you guys perspective on how big the bees were.

Of course, the park also had many other flowers in bloom.

I was really trying to hide!

Some yellow wisteria.

A white wisteria tree.

The park was also meant to be pretty spectacular in the evening under lights. However, we couldn't be bothered sticking around.

After a long day, went to a ramen place that my teachers had taken me to once. They make all the ingredients fresh on site. So what better to finish off the day than some freshly made ramen and gyoza.