I had the good fortune this spring to visit Japan. My husband’s grandparents emigrated from Kumamoto prefecture in southern Japan. Ron and I had long intended to visit the region, but we kept putting off the trip year after year for the usual reasons of time and money and language issues. Neither of us speaks any Japanese. But last fall it occurred to us “If not now, when?” So we sat down with our daughter (who does speak a little Japanese) and son-in-law and booked our flight to Fukuoka, which is a large city just a short train-ride away from Kumamoto. We chose to go the week that the University of Hawaii takes spring break in the hope that our son could come along too. As it turned out, my son couldn’t make it, but our timing was exquisite, because we stepped off the plane to find ourselves at the peak of cherry blossom season. We couldn’t have planned it better if we’d tried. Actually, if we’d tried, I’m sure we wouldn’t have done nearly so well, because the season was predicted to peak a week later.
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