Hanging with the Iitomi Community Center women

Well, last weekend was absolutely great! There are a group of women that I uh, er....sort of teach English. They call me their English teacher but they already speak great English. So anytime we meet, we just have long conversations that range from Japanese customs to American customs to hot guys to why I am a Christian back to hot guys and then to why I'm not married yet and then back again.
So anyways, these women are great! I love them so much. And last week they invited me and a couple of my friends to a traditional Japanese flower festival (this one was for azaleas). My good friends Ali and Blake and I met them after church and headed to this beautiful Japanese park that surrounds a shrine that is in turn surrounded by Mito City. This park is full of azaleas (which aren't in bloom yet) and the festival is held there every year. One of the members of the group was holding a traditional tea ceremony at the festival (she teaches many people this beautiful art), so we stopped there first and did that. The very women we were with had taught me the basics of tea ceremony before, but it was Ali (who has been here for 5 years) and Blake's first time, so many of the Japanese had a grand time teaching the finer points of a very old and traditional custom to a couple of Westerners who had no idea what they were doing. It was great!
Then we went from the traditional to the non-traditional by having a picnic lunch of tacos in the middle of beautiful Japanese park.