Hanami At Yoyogi Park

Spring is here and one of the events organised by the Malaysian Students' Association in Japan (MSAJ) was the Hanami & Welcoming Party to celebrate the newly arrived students to Japan. Moving to Chiba has given me the opportunity to attend activities and events organised by MSAJ, which are usually held in the Kanto region more often. The hanami party was held last Sunday at Yoyogi Park, which is one of the largest park in Tokyo. 

It was supposed to start at ten in the morning, but Malaysians being Malaysians, we will never be punctual, right? 

One of the section in Yoyogi Park, which is full with cherry blossoms trees.

The reasons we were late was partially ours, as we mistakenly got down at the wrong train station, and also because of the wrong directions given by my junior haha!

We thought we can just walk to the park upon getting down from Yoyogi station, but apparently, it is much nearer if we'd gotten down at Harajuku station. Once we exited Harajuku station, we began walking towards the park and I called one of my junior to ask him about the spot where we were supposed to gather. Chai Ei then gave me a wrong direction that made us to go one big round around the park. Instead of turning right at a T-junction, we were told to turn left! What else, we had to take one big round while getting lost in the park-lor haha wtf!

Ben, the current President of MSAJ introducing his committee to everyone.

Groups of seniors and juniors, eating the bento set while catching ups with each other.

With seniors - Su Sing, Min Ley, and Chin Chin (do you know that chin chin is a vulgar word in Japanese?).

After the lunch sessions, which was bento sets from Hotto Motto, some snacks and soft drinks, we had a Bingo game. The great thing is that there were prizes for the winners. The not-so-great thing is that most of the stuff were from 100 yen shop, and some of the stuff were quite weird haha!

One example was the dinosaur egg that Stella won.

Everybody busy checking out their Bingo cards.

No idea why I was so exited because it was such a bad Bingo day for me that afternoon lol!

"Your number got kena-ar?"



Stella with her dino egg. Go to Stella house a few months after this and you might catch a glimpse of Barney haha!

While everybody were busy checking out the numbers on their cards, someone spotted something suspicious underneath the blue sheet. It looked like a tail, of a dead animal. It was the golden opportunity for the mischievous guys to disturb the girls, just like how Yow Keong took a branch and tried to swing the tail towards the girls lol!

However, we later realised that it was just an artificial wool that resembled an animal's tail.

A fox was apparently sleeping underneath the blue sheet haha!

The Bingo game session took a break and the next slot was a mini photography contest. We were given a time limit of half an hour, to go around Yoyogi Park and snap as many photos as we like, and later come out with our best shot with the theme "Sakura". It was kind of a broad theme, but it was down to our creativity to produce our best piece of masterpiece.

So, it was a bonus to those was equipped with those canggih cameras. However, some of them didn't wanna lose out, as they used their iPhone to snap the photos.

We spotted Tigger at the park!

Edhuan with his compact camera, trying out a macro shot of sakura.

Sakura boy? Lol!

Cherry blossoms by the pond.

Fallen petals of sakura in the pond.

Judges busy selecting the best pictures.

Cung's submission, which was selected as one of the winners of the contest.

While they were announcing the winners in front, we were more busy taking pictures behind lol!

Not only camwhore, but we kanpai-ed as well haha!

Chin Chin and Clement, who won the main prizes for the photography contest.

After that, it was more and more of chit chatting and getting to know each other session, until the party ended at around two in the evening. Here are the rest of the pictures we took at Yoyogi Park. As you might notice, they are hardly any pictures of sakura in this entry, but our faces lol! That's because you can always search for sakura pictures in the Internet.

Here comes some selected pictures of the people who attended the hanami.

Ben Foo, the current President of MSAJ.

The guys in my batch, who are now based in Kanto region.

The girls, also from my batch. Met Kai Ning (most right) for the first time since three years ago!

Two ex-seniors from Nagaoka Kosen with the current senior-cum-junior in the same kosen, Carine.

Fish and Agnes, who just arrived to Japan several days ago. I first thought that they were Japanese =.=

Mixture of new and old faces.

Another rojak of seniors and juniors.

It's not often you get to see people taking pictures while talking on the phone lol!

Haris and James.

Met 洗衣机, or washing machine (inside joke)-cum-iPhone jail breaker for the first time haha!

The group picture!

An ang moh girl was walking passed us when we were taking our group photo, and she randomly came in to take a picture with us lol!

Here are the rest of the random shots taken around Yoyogi Park, on our way to take the train at Harajuku station. It was a Sunday, and coincidentally, there was a concert going on nearby and the area was super crowded. We succesfully managed to walk through the sea of people and take the train to our next destination.

Later that night, we had a dinner with Cung's Taiwanese friend in Chiba. 

The long queue, for toilets. I'd rather pee in the pond haha!

This must be the biggest dog I've seen in my entire life. Look at the poor little white dog on the left haha! 



A group of middle-aged guys, dressed up like Elvis and doing street dance at the park.



Only in Japan you can see girls dressing up like Barbie dolls and picnic under the sakura tress.

Pushing and shoving on our way to Harajuku station.

Endless flow of people at the station.

The train platforms were crowded as well.

Plum-flavoured dressing for the salad and grape fruit cocktail.

Hello!

That's all folks. Thank you for reading.