花見最高！ Hanami's the best!

今日は宇都宮の八幡山公園で花見に行ってきました。（花見の習慣は日本のものなので在日外国人が英語で話し合っていても花見を英語に訳さないでそのまま「ハナミ」と言います。日本に住んでいなくて日本のことが分からない外国人と話していると英語【flower-viewing】に訳してあげます。）今週末は満開で最高に奇麗でした！やっぱり桜を何度見ても見飽きませんね

Today I went flower-viewing at Utsunomiya's Hachimanyama Park. (Foreigners living in Japan call it as-is in Japanese, "hanami", even when speaking to one another in English since it's a uniquely Japanese custom we don't have back home. We just call it flower-viewing in English for other foreigners who don't live in Japan and don't know much about the country.) The cherry blossoms are in full bloom this weekend and unbelievably gorgeous. There's no getting sick of watching them.

 

花見の時、県内の外国人が公園で集まることがほとんどなので今日は４０人以上のグループで楽しんでいましたが、私は大勢が苦手で、特に知らない人が多いと落ち着けないのでちょっと挨拶しに行っただけです。金曜日も仕事後公園へ夜花見をしに行きましたが、２回とも一直線でもちポテトの屋台に行っちゃいました私は一番好きな食べ物というのはありませんが、あるとしたらもちポテトは１番好きなものに近いと思います。にもかかわらず、食べる機会が少なすぎ　もう今はもちポテトのために公園に行っているみたいな感じです。情けない！

When it comes to flower-viewing, the foreigners within the prefecture almost always gather in a big group at the park to picnic together. Today there was over forty people, but I'm not good at crowds, and especially can't relax when I don't know a lot of the people. So I just stopped by to say hi. Friday after work I'd also gone to the park for some evening hanami, but both times I went straight to the mochi-potato food stall! (Mochi is rice pounded into a sticky cake-like substance, and that was mixed with mashed potatoes, deep-fried and topped with butter to make mochi-potato.) I don't really have a favorite food, but if I had to choose one, mochi-potato would be near the top. Even so, there's never an opportunity to eat it anywhere! So at this point it's almost like I'm going to the park for the sake of eating mochi-potato. So pitiful!

 

じゃぁ、早めにアパートに帰りましたので、これからスプリング・クリーニング（春の大掃除）だぞ！ゴールデンウィークにいとこが初めて日本に遊びにきて、一週間後彼氏がなんと４回目に日本に遊びに来てくれます。私はホームシックになっていて最近悲しくなったりしていますが、これで本当に助かります。８月の帰国までに頑張らなくちゃ　まだ日本に残りたいですが、３年間も一人暮らしをしているともう寂しくてたまならい...ストレスが思わず具体的な症状に出てきちゃっていますので日本に残りたくても健康のためにアメリカで休憩してから戻らないと...　本当に悔しいです。

So now I've returned to my apartment a little early, and I'm going to start spring cleaning now! My cousin comes to visit during the big national holiday week, Golden Week, and a week after that my boyfriend comes to visit for the fourth time, amazingly. I've been homesick and sad lately, so this is really going to save me. Gotta do my best to make it until my homecoming in August! I do want to stay in Japan, but I've been living on my own for three years now and that's made me too lonely now. My stress is starting to show up with physical symptoms, so even if I want to stay in Japan, I need to just come back after resting in America for a while for the sake of my health. Which really sucks!