Well, after walking and walking and walking, I made it to the end of the parade route, where I was able to finally cross Constitution Avenue to the side where the matsuri was taking place. Then it was another 4 block or so walk to get to the nearest entrance to the matsuri, where I stopped to rest for a few minutes. I decided to pace myself after looking in on the huge crowds of people milling about (or trying to!) inside the matsuri fence, because there would be no sitting inside! I managed to spend about 4 hours there, got to see some interesting booths, inflicted my Japanese on some poor folks, and basically had fun. I saw a very high-energy J-Pop band called “M’sh”, and watched some friends perform in a cosplay “fashion show”. After that was over I decided it was time to start the long walk back to my car in the Potomac Park, so I headed back to the Tidal Basin, taking a few more photos along the way. I did stop at the Jefferson Memorial to buy a soft drink and take another short rest, but since I was so close to the car I figured it would be better to keep going. Finally I got to my car at about 5 PM, after starting at 8:30, drove home, unloaded my SD card, and promptly went to sleep!
So, one week later I managed to upload some more photos here! As always, click to see the full-size photo!
Enjoy!
There were a few people at the matsuri…
… just a few…
… thousand…
And you thought DC *traffic* gridlock was bad…
Dancers performing a traditional Hokkaido fisherman’s dance
DC Japan Model Railroad Club
Some cosplay friends at the NHKWorld booth
A couple of Cherry Blossom Queen candidates
I have a bag, it’s a pink bag, others may have other bags, but this one is mine. Any questions?
So, the last of the cherry blossoms are dropping their petals, and the primary colors are turning from pink and white to green, after a seemingly endless Winter. Here are photos I took during my walk from the Tidal Basin to the DC Sakura Matsuri (street festival) on Saturday.
I’ll have photos from the matsuri itself in a later post.
Here we go, a batch from Tuesday evening (the only time I can get down there is around 5:30. Dang job!). I got some pretty neat pictures of the blossoms, and especially pictures of people enjoying them! I also got some eerie effects by photographing cherry trees at night, lit by streetlights!
So, here are some more, and even more to come later! Enjoy!
Here is another batch of photos taken in Washington DC near the Tidal Basin. The cherry trees aren’t quite in full bloom, which is surprising given how many flowers there are, but there were still quite a few unopened buds. As you can probably tell, the sun was starting to come out of the low clouds, and so some of the photos are much better lit, with deeper shadows and brighter colors. I may have one more page to put up, just in case you all are getting just about “cherry blossomed out”!
Here’s the first batch of cherry blossom photos that I took over the weekend, these were taken around noon on Sunday. It was a cloudy day to start, so some of the pictures may be a bit dark. You can see a larger image if you click on the picture after clicking a thumbnail, or if you want to see a really big picture, you can right-click on the image. I’ll be posting more, later on.
