Picnic

My spring break is turning out to be much more busy than I had planned.

Today was Day Three of my Art Tour.
Mayo took me to a restored Machiya (old Japanese style house) with displays of Hinamatsuri dolls. What I really like about the old houses is the kitchens. They are built in a way that makes them seem outside the house and inside the house at the same time. This one was particularly large and had the wonderful old stone stove with large built in pots for cooking rice. It is said that rice cooked in these old stoves tastes better than rice-cooker rice. I would think that the fire has something to do with this.
After that we went to see a smaller exhibition by Ota Saburo, the man who had done the BirdNet project at the Art Center. It was amazing how much they were charging for his stuff. I mean, I can understand that artists don't make a lot of money, but you aren' t going to make money chargin $40 for some string and a stamp that no one will buy.

Ah, the sakura are blooming! We had a picnic in the Old Palace grounds, and I saw my first cherry tree blossoms of the season. They should be starting any day now, according to Yahoo Sakura Predictions. I love how the Japanese try to predict everything. Except for tomorrow's temperature. They only like to say that it's gonna be sunny or rainy. Not helpful.