This year, we got to attend something that I have been wanting to do for SO LONG! We went to the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington DC or 全米桜祭り Zenbei Sakura Matsuri!
When we lived in Japan, we would attend the festival every year. It was only a short drive, and the experience was just amazing. We would climb the stairs to the top of Yaedake Mountain, get to the shrine, and go through the traditions… From there, it was all fun and games. Booths everywhere with food, games, and more food. Of course there were souvenirs and random things to buy… Believe it or not, there were even break dancers set up to dance in the streets! Talk about a throwback! This was all back in 2001-2004.
The National Cherry Blossom Festival isn’t much like what we experienced in Okinawa, but it was still a good time.
We started off by walking along the National Mall, and to the Potomac River Tidal Basin, where the cherry trees were planted in 1912, which were actually a gift from Japan. The trees were just beautiful, in full bloom. There was a slight breeze that would kick up every once in a while and blow some blossom petals from the trees, and made it look like it was snowing. It was just gorgeous! Of course we took a few photos, just trying to get the right angle to capture monuments among the blossoms. It was a lot of fun.
From there, we walked up to the street festival, which was along Pennsylvania Ave NW. They had the entire street blocked off to traffic and wow! There were booths everywhere, and stages set up for performances, and people… LOTS of people!
We checked out a bunch of the booths, including the Learn to speak Japanese, Crafting table, and the Sakura Science booth, which wasn’t science pertaining to the flower, but rather, a name of the group… We even saw a bit of the trivia game that they had!
There was so much food there too! I was glad we had already eaten lunch before we went, but the sights and smells of the yakitori, or yakisoba, or various other Japanese foods that were there made me hungry all over again.
This trip actually inspired a very simple and fun craft that I did with my girls. We painted our own Cherry Blossoms using some craft supplies that I got at my local Walmart!
All you need are some Acrylic Paints, a paint brush, some Card Stock and an empty soda bottle!
All you need to do is squeeze out some pink paint onto a paper plate, just enough so that you can use the soda bottle as a stamp. Touch the bottom of the soda bottle to the wet paint, and then “stamp” it on to the card stock. Lift straight up and you’ll get a “flower”.
Repeat until you have made as many Cherry Blossoms as you’d like on the page.
Next, squeeze out some brown paint, and use your paint brush to draw branches in between your Cherry Blossoms, connecting them however you think looks good.
You can use different colors of card stock to make the Cherry Blossoms really stand out, especially if you’re using this as any part of your home decor!
Once dried, you can hang them up on a wall, and bring in a little bit of the Cherry Blossom Festival into your home!
Have fun! If you try this craft, I’d love to see it!! Post links in the comments below!
