Plum Festival, Treasure Island and Back to School Day

Sunday, my last day in Mito, began at the crack of dawn. Literally. Madoka liked to sleep with the curtains open because she said the morning sunlight was pretty, so I awoke at 5:30 with the sunrise. She was right though, it was very pretty. She had borrowed some futon materials from her mother (who by the way
was a complete sweetheart and sent presents to me via her.), so she let me take the bed. I had a huge moment of confusion and deja-vu when I woke up and was staring at an all too familiar ceiling, sleeping on an all too familiar mattress, and for a brief moment, when I glanced to the right and saw an identical replica of my desk and bureau, I thought that I was having a very lucid dream where I had jumped back in time.

After laying there for a few hours waiting for Madoka to wake up, I eventually got dressed and made her breakfast, my grandma's signature toad in the holes. They're pretty simple, but she seemed to really like them, and I'm slightly impressed that I was able to cook them, and she
was able to eat them entirely without knives. Seriously, she doesn't own any. I asked her extensively about this and she couldn't name a single food she ate regularly that warranted a knife. And then I put breakfast in front of her and she said "Oh. I see how this might be a problem to eat." But we managed.

After that, I got picked up by Kanemoto-Sensei, my seminar adviser from the last time I was here, and her daughter Saya. We headed to Joyce-sensei's house for a Canadian pancake breakfast party for Saya. It was delicious. Kanemoto and Joyce Sensei swore up and down that they were awful cooks, but the pancakes were very delicious. Since Joyce had retired last year, and Kanemoto was retiring this year, I gave them retirement gifts of "Life is good" mugs, that said "Love what you do and do what you love" on the back. They really liked them!

After that we all packed into Kanemoto-sensei's car and went off to Kairakuen park, the super famous park in my town, that you will never find in any guide book, but is on Japan's list of top 3 most beautiful gardens for it's plum blossom season/plum festival....which it was the last weekend for while I was there, and the first weekend during the whole of the festival that had good weather. I literally couldn't believe how lucky I was! I had completely missed out on Plum season last time, and I think for the first time, I truly understood the true beauty of this garden (that was really a military fortress masquerading as a garden back in the olden days, since that was forbidden by law.) Literally, the kanji for Mito means water gate/fortress/barrier, and it is because of this garden on the hill, and the height of the Kobuntei (poetry reading cottage), it made the perfect place to be a lookout over the water, and get the jump on anyone who tried to attack. I believe that pre-industrialism/pollution you could see 15km to the coast at Ooarai.

Where I bought my one of a kind
plum perfume in a necklace

The gardens were breathtakingly gorgeous, and I snapped about a million pictures of plum blossoms, and bought a cute little heart shaped vial necklace, filled with real plum perfume, made from the plums in that area. I had never known what a plum smelled like, but after walking through the gardens, I realized that the plum blossoms were really that strong, that I indeed could smell that beautiful and subtle scent. It was like deja-vu-walking through these beautiful gardens again, looking down on Senba-ko and taking in the 800 year old tree, the bamboo garden and other familiar sites. It was gorgeous!

Perhaps the highlight of the festival for me, aside from the festival stands, was that I finally got to meet MITO KOMON! No not literally, of course, but someone dressed up like him and his motley gang, alongside the Kimono bedecked "Plum Maidens", who are kind of like the grand marshals/parade queens if this were a parade, and we took a picture with them. I even got to hold the "inryou" or talisman/heirloom that he's famous for wielding with the Mito/Tokugawa crest on it, and one of the sidekicks told me I "looked like a badass" in Japanese. So that was a definite highlight.

The new couches are so itty bitty
you can't fit more than 4 people on
them! While I sit the perpetually
full mini-fridge that now resides in
here, our couches were totally much
better (though probably dirtier).

I'm coming home, coming home, tell the world that I'm
coming home!

Kanemoto-sensei dropped me back off at the Kaikan, after which I ran around the Kaikan taking pictures with Madoka. So much fun. I got to go to all of my old favorite places, like my little bicycle garage, Building B, my room, B-207, the main lobby (they got a new set of (much smaller) couches!), and I got to see the whole area where Building D (where Marina, Adon and Elena lived)....which is crazy different. Going hand in hand with my tour of the school later, post-earthquake, the school gave everything a face lift, and that includes it's image. Like America, Japan has a hierarchy of Private, State and Public/Local/Community colleges, and Ibaraki I guess, was kind of in the mid-range for State Schools. In attempts to elevate that, and get more serious academics to come, they touched up a lot of the campus, (the only exception being the student club building. THAT is still all dangerous as get out and with the stairs falling apart, begging for a lawsuit) and built a whole new library, as well as made it a goal to expand the exchange program. And by expand the exchange program, I mean they tour down an apartment complex behind the kaikan, and did away with the parking lot by building Five new buildings identical to Building D. Seriously. Look at

The new complex where they added 5
new buildings that are replicas of the
original building D. Now there is E, F,
G, H, and I!

All that is left of our large field where
we would play some games and
do fireworks.

 this space and imagine it 4 years ago with only one building and a large field. We did everything from park people's cars there, to have fireworks parties. I guess it's good their expanding the number of students, as well as the variety of countries, but I'll kind of miss it. I think Mito as a whole has been making a push to become bigger/more international, because aside from the station and the renovations around downtown, I noticed that the signs at Kairakuen were now suddenly in English, Chinese and Korean, in addition to Japanese.

The view from Madoka's doorway to my balcony. I was the second one in from the right on the 2nd floor

My mailbox! Apparently no one is living there right now, so in my mind, it's still my room

The bike garage. A little less full now that there is some parking over by the new buildings complex

Building B! That Parking lot is where I did 4th of July fireworks with friends.

The view from the 2nd floor of the Kaikan over our little alley way, and where I wrote about "watching my friends
ride off/disappear into the sunrise" during my going away party.

It's my Happy Door to B-207!!! Oh how I missed this apartment!

The annex from A to B. Yippee-Kye-Yay I'm home!

Takarajima Time!

After that it was LUNCH time at Takarajima (Treasure Island in English)! My absolute favorite place after Taiko (if only because it's more expensive). Madoka and I chilled in the parking lot waiting for people to show up and MAN did people show up to see me! I've never felt so loved! Madoka, Miki, Ayako, Tomoko, Gabira and Gabira's 2 friends, Nagai and Nemo all came! Holy schnikes! We surprised the heck out of the staff when not only a foreigner walked in, but requested 2 tables for a total of 10 people...and we probably scared some children with our loudness, but hey, they can cope for 2 hours when I've been waiting for this for four years! Of course, we got the Tabehoudai (all you can eat). Nothing short of that would have really been doing Takarajima justice. I wanted my Calbee, Potato Salad, Jagaimo and Vanilla Ice Cream to top it all off.  Of course, after sitting down, I made quick use of the drink bar. Most of my Japanese friends will do the drink bar, but as they only ever get a drink or two in the tiny cups, they feel it's expensive. I explained they just weren't utilizing it properly, and when one did, it actually became quite economical.

Note : Proper utilization. And this was only my first visit to the drink bar.

Feeling so loved that so many people came out to see me!

So much delicious food!

You do not understand the deliciousness of their vanilla ice cream. For reasons I will never understand, Japan has sinfully good vanilla ice cream across the board, and Takarajima's is good to the point of obsession, particularly on a
belly fully of Korean Barbeque. It's the perfect finale to a Takarajima Tabehoudai.

Everyone just about freaked out when I sat on the floor for this picture

Oh Nagai. If he were a dwarf, you'd be my adorable Bashful. For the picture AFTER this, since he was so bashful/freaking out over me just hugging him, just to see his reaction, I tried to kiss him on the cheek...the reaction was priceless and oh so very him.  

Gabira and her friend, Yuki I believe. 

Nimo! My favorite part of lunch, was perhaps saying something that, while no shocker to my friends at lunch who were super close to me, was a bit crash/brash and I guess outlandish for a woman in Japan, but it was 100% worth it to see Nagai's face and Nimo turn scarlet and choke on his drink. 

Tomoko. NO words are needed for this

After Takarajima, those of us who were left, suited up and went back to school! No we are not too cool!

hi ho, hi ho, it's off to school we go!

As mentioned before, post earthquake, the school has gotten a MAJOR face lift post earthquake - 




every building, at least on the exterior, looked bright, shiny, new and freshly painted. The gate had also gotten some more construction, and all of the bicycle parking lots had been paved over (gasp!), as, presumably for safety, they were moved the edges of campus, near the student parking lot, behind the cafeteria, and back by the club buildings/athletic fields, and biking in the heart of campus is now verboten. The shed near the International Student Center where we parked our bikes, was, of course, gone, and the building had been painted over. I couldn't get into the building, because it was locked, so we moved on, meandering throughout the main drag. It's still just as beautiful as I remember it, as the trees were just coming into bloom!



For reasons unknown, the Kougi, aka lecture hall and something akin to the Forum at Penn State, where Tony and I took the most worthless class ever, Japanese film, was open! So of course, I took that as an invitation and the classroom was open! So I took my hand at playing sensei and messing around with the whiteboard, writing " Caitlyn was Here!" and all that. I was tempted to leave it up, but figured that was probably a bad idea.  We went to the student club house, which is just as dangerous as it's ever been, particularly because on the 3rd floor part of the staircase we went up to go to the ESS and UNESCO spaces, several of the steps are so rusted through, there isn't much holding them together. Given that there is no other staircase that I could discern in the entire building, and I know no faculty has set foot in there for many years, given how dirty and trash filled it is, I don't think anyone at the school actually knows about the deterioration of this building and it's lack of safety, but I'm slightly scared if they have another earthquake.



Up in the club house, Gabira and I hijacked the ESS club notebook, that's a bit of a club diary that they leave sitting around for people to jot things down in, and wrote notes to our younger kouhai's who probably had no idea who we were, and read the journal that was left over from our tenure at IbaDai. Nemo showed me the UNESCO club space, and I had to deny my temptations to climb under the kotatsu, and then we meandered on over to the Shienkaikan, where all club meetings were held. It was actually OPEN because orchestra rehearsals were going on, and Impressive Voice was having their GRADUATION LIVE concert, so I got to run around the building freaking out people by the random appearance of a foreigner and her entourage appearing from literally no where.


We headed over to Seikyo after that, because surprisingly, it too was open, though the cafeteria and school store wasn't. Up on the top floor, we accidentally walked in on teacher's prepping for New Student Orientation, and I guess our clothes were too nice and screamed "alumni", because one of the teachers was an absolute sweetheart, and even though I'm sure it was a pain in the but, immediately proceeded to go grab 3 or 4 different year books out of a closet, so that Gabira, myself and Tomoko could see our graduating Yearbooks. So I FINALLY got to see the year book that Tony and I are in! Woohoo! We also stopped for a quick few shots in front of the new library that just opened in April, because their last library was a pathetic joke, and they knew it too, so they ripped it all down and built a new one, because if they ever wanted to elevate their academic status, they had to build a place that people would actually want to study at.

You would think that that would be enough for one day, but no, I wasn't done just yet. After that Charles appeared, so we headed to Gusto just down the street for dinner and drinks, so it really was like old times and I got to hit up all of my favorite places. He has gotten married in the last year, and it looks good on him. He was very happy. I also couldn't believe how lucky I was in getting to see him again, as he had just gotten a new job as a graphic designer in Saitama and was moving that week! So this really was my last chance to see him Mito! Ironically enough, our waiter was an IbaDai student, who Charles had taught in middle school -- talk about a reunion or chances! It was so much fun getting to talk to each other again, and it was like no time had passed at all. We even got to talking about our littlebigplanet adventures again. :)

Tomoko then shuttled Gabira and I to Mito station, as we were both taking the train back to Tokyo that night (I had to meet up with Vishal at our hotel in Nihombashi, since he had arrived in Tokyo just shortly before I left Mito. At the station, since we were taking the slow train, we had some time to kill, so of course, the three of us took PURIKURA to commemorate my return. And it was awesome. The only bathroom at the station was at Yamada Denki, and I wasn't able to go to the bathroom without hearing the jingle fewer than three times, so the trip to Mito was officially a complete success. 

The International Student Center...sans bike shed and with a new paint color!

The Kougi!

Writing "Caitlyn was here!" On the white board in my Japanese Film room.

The clubhouse building - the same familiar dump.

The deadly staircase at the clubhouse that is asking for a lawsuit

The ESS club Area!

The message I left behind in the club journal

The UNESCO Club Space!

The Education Building E, Where Tomoko and I had the English Circle meetings

My IbaDai Yearbook :3

Despite me falling asleep on her, Gabira was amazing and managed to get me close enough to my hotel that I could make it on my own, and I managed to reunite with Vishal and goodness did we crash and crash hard. (That picture is me falling asleep on Gabira/my suitcase on the train to Tsuchiura enroute to Tokyo.)

 Additionally I should mention that Madoka's new boyfriend, Tomoya, was a HUGE sweetheart in helping my super heavy and, by then, disorganized suitcase down the steps of the kaikan and out to Madoka's car. AND he gave me a Kumomon keychan. It's suuuuuuuuper cute. This however did not stop me for warning him if he made my friend cry, I'd come back for him...;) He's a really nice guy and I like him, so I don't think that will be a problem!

What a whirlwind tour of Mito! I am so fortunate and lucky that everything came together JUST right for everything I wanted to do, and all the amazing things I never thought to do/would happen. Thank you to everyone who made this amazing weekend possible! Next time : The Ghibli museum and meeting Araragi!