A couple of weeks ago, I went to a hanami party with the Dutch society next to the Ashiyagawa (river), we were supposed to go with the 3 of us, but Reo got fever so I went alone.
After that I had 2 more hanami parties, one with my work, and one with my family in Tarumi, kenkouundoukoen.
Besides the Hanami parties we also had a Tulip party. North of Osaka there is Expo park (were the 70's expo was held), from April 11th until the 29th there was a tulip festival , a dutch tulip festival with dutch food, beer and Japanese ladies in traditional dutch costumes. We went there together with Boukje and her husband, Rick, Frederic and his wife and brother in law and of course with Mayuko and the little one.... REO
If you want to read a bit more about the tulip festival, then check out Boukje's blog, or Rick's blog.
Saturday the 25th was the day that my GOLDEN WEEK started. And because May the 5th is Children's day, or actually Boy's day (there is a girls day the 3rd of the 3rd, march 3rd. They don't have months as January, February here, but they just have 12 months. １月、 ２月、 ３月, etc), for this day we received a kabuto specially for boy's day from Mayuko her parents:
Kii-Katsuura
For our golden week holiday (Reo's first holiday), we went to Kii-Katsuura. Kii-Katsuura is a small onsen/fishing place south of Wakayama ken (which is about 4,5 hours by train south of Osaka ). We stayed there for 2 nights, and had a great time.
We left Monday morning around 9.30 and had a very nice ride to Kii-katsuura, Reo did great as well. Arrived at the hotel, Mayuko went to 1 of the 7 onsen that the hotel has (the hotel is located on a peninsula so we needed to take a boat). For dinner we had a buffet, with a lot of Maguro (Tuna). The food was nice but not too special. In the evening I also went to one of the onsen (the first time for me to go alone, the other time that we went to a hotel with onsen I was a bit chicken-shit to go naked with other man.... I know everyone has a trunk, but still... I wasn't used to show my body to strangers... But surprisingly I had no problems with being naked together with other man this time...), after this I really enjoyed going to onsen; I went to 5 of the onsen in the hotel in the following days.
The next day we woke up early for breakfast and for onsen, this time Reo went in the onsen as well together with Mayuko. He was a bit scared so he hold Mayuko tightly the whole time, but he wasn't crying at all.
Later in the morning we went to Nachi no taki, a beautiful place where the tallest waterfall of Japan is (133 meter) but before that we went up the Daimonzaka a 600m long stone-paved stairway with 200 cedar trees that are about 800 years old.
When we came back to the hotel we had a short nap, and then went back to Kii-katsuura for a lovely Maguro dinner at Playboy where we almost ordered a whale dish, but the oksan (the chef's wife) told us that the taste is a difficult to eat for us so we decided not to eat it. Coming back in the the hotel we went to the onsen again, I took Reo with me this time. I really enjoy going to onsen, but I had some skin problems on my chest these days so the salt in the water wasn't very nice for my skin...
The last day I went to the Tuna market, to see all the big fish... and they were indeed big. What a great time that was haha.
We left the hotel, bought some souveniers, plus a Tuna and Whale bento(lunch box) (which didn't taste very nice) and left Kii-katsuura around 1 to be home again before dinner.
In overall we had a great holiday and hope to go again somewhere during the summer holiday.
Here are some photo's;
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