it's not life that matters but the journey...

It's already the end of the third day of my five-day vacation. Time is going way too fast. Saturday I didn't do much but laundry and cleaning. Sunday I went out with Miki and her son and daughter for shopping and then lunch. Today I went for a walk in the morning, then was home all day, just talking to my mom on Skype and sitting outside with my cat, and reading some lesson planning information online. I've watched a few tv shows (Flash Forward and Legend of the Seeker), and I've slept a lot. I'm just so tired and I don't really know why! The weather has been very pleasant - sunny and warm, and even a little breeze which makes it not so hot. But I don't have much motivation for anything at all, even though I have tons of things I want to do. I did get enough motivation to go for a walk this morning, but it was hot, and I'm so out of shape, so when I got back from my walk I had a nasty headache. I had to take a nap to make my headache go away, and even after the nap, and after drinking several cups of coffee and tea, I'm still super sleepy. what's up with that?

Anyway, I have a couple picture posts to do, starting with these photos that I took a week ago, the day after we went to the waterfalls with Alex. Last Sunday, Masahiko and I went to a park in Fujinomiya called Fujireien with two of our friends, and I took pictures of the gorgeous cherry blossoms. That was the last chance for us to see them, as they are short-lived and last about two or three weeks total. The Sakura are all now gone for another whole year!

As a preface, I should note that the park we visited, Fujireien, is owned and maintained by the Buddhist cult Soka Gakkai, and besides the gorgeous cherry blossoms and other trees and flowers, there is also a huge amount of space dedicated to a massive graveyard for Soka Gakkai's members. In the first picture you see here, and another one later on, you can see how the gravestones are all so uniform and perfectly spaced apart, just like the military cemeteries you see in the U.S. I found it to be a bit creepy, as it's not the sort of thing you expect to see in Japan, especially next to the beautiful sakura trees. it's kind of confirmation, to me, that Soka Gakkai is not affiliated with Buddhism in any way, and that it's super cultish... but you can do research and find out for yourself if you're interested. here's their website: http://www.sgi.org/ and here's some other pages about their organization: wikipedia ; about.com and one more, a page maintained by Rick Ross, an expert on cults: http://www.rickross.com/groups/gakkai.html

anyway, enough about that... I want mainly to show you the beautiful flowers, so just in case you haven't seen enough of my cherry blossom photos,






































so I have more pictures of other stuff (my junior high, some other flowers, the koinobori hanging near my house), but I'll post those a bit later. Hope everyone has a great week! me I'm off to enjoy the last remaining days of my last vacation until July.