Golden Week Part IV: Sapporo (and the end)

If you missed Part I (Tokyo), Part II (Nikko), and Part III (Hakodate) of our Golden Week adventure, you can check them out here, here, and here!

The final leg of Mom's vacation (or high-impact adventure) to Japan took place in our home city of Sapporo. Turns out, she made the perfect show-and-tell to take to school, and I think that she, my students, and my co-workers really enjoyed her visits:

Our school's Tea Ceremony Club even invited us to a special private performance of an Ryurei-style tea ceremony. If you're not familiar with the Japanese tea ceremony, it's quite an elegant and ritualistic affair. Besides that, you get to eat delicious sweets and drink thick, green matcha tea:

For Mother's Day, we headed down to Maruyama Park to partake in hanami, which is basically a huge BBQ picnic under the cherry blossoms (which the Japanese have turned into almost a religious affair, and I rather like it!). While the cursed cold ensured that the blossoms still weren't completely full bloom, we had quite the fun, international affair (our little group consisted of peeps from America, South Africa, Scotland, New Zeland, and Japan):

There are ALWAYS to friends to be made at each and every hanami:

Besides all of the other cool parts about Mom coming to stay with us, I also got a new flower and veggie garden out of the deal! Thanks, Mom!

Saying goodbye:

So two weeks came and totally flew by, and I learned just how much fun it can be traveling with my mom! Don't know why we didn't think of that earlier, but I hope this is just the beginning of a new travel partnership (what do you think about Europe now, Mom?)!

As for the real world, it's back to it for all of us! Oh Golden Week, you ruin me every year...