Sakura Matsuri 2011

So, last weekend on Saturday my sis and I made a trip out to Brooklyn Botanical Garden all the way from Inwood, Manhattan to experience the Cherry blossoms and Japanese cultural festival. It was a long ride from home, but not too rigid. Our ride involved two quick subway train changes, and all went well. Considering it was weekend I was glad that there were no service changes or delays on the train line that we had to take!

As we had bought our tickets earlier from BBG's website, we didn't have to stand in line to get it. It was muy simple! As we walked through our very first sight of "fun" was this: I am not sure what this person tried to be...as in what kind of costume this was ...



Someone in weird costume!

This festival was truly a Japanese cultural festival and hence represented tons of things/activities that were Japanese. This was an area for Manga....I had no idea what that was....all I could figured was something to do with comic, may be?

A fun J-Lounge for kiddies...and adults a like...and yea, those chairs were quite comfy..I sat on one of those..it was gooodddd...

A walk past the above ground known as Osborne garden, we came upon the Cherry Esplanade, where lots of main performances took place on below stage

The whole shindig started with some introductions by Brooklyn Borough's President, BBG's President, a rep from Queens, and here shown below the Japanese Ambassador to Japanese Consulate in New York:

Japanese Ambassador to the Consulate of Japan, New York

First performance was Taiko Drumming. My first time experience this, it was good...enjoyed it!

Taiko Drumming

Later there were series of traditional dances from Okinawa...

Dance # 1

Dance # 2

Dance # 3

Dance # 4

After enjoying above mentioned performances we decided it was time to take a walk, and check out other stuffs that were happening. And besides, we needed to use the restroom...I needed to use it BADLY! It was a bit of walk from the Cherry Esplanade to Visitor Center, where the restrooms were...but good thing we made it! We then decided to check out the Ikebana exhibition that was going on the 2nd floor of the visitor center...

Ikebana (Japanese art of Flower arrangement) : The very first time I heard of Ikebana was probably when I was either in 2nd or 3rd grade. It was in an article in our text book...the topic of that article was "Japanese Children" or something to that effect. Though I don't quite remember the content of the entire article, but I think, the point of the article was to tell us how well mannered Japanese Children were! It was to clue us in! Anyway, in that article it was mentioned that some female children learn the art of Ikebana as part of the grooming process....though there was no picture of Ikebana in that article, it was portrayed being very different from just any regular flower arrangement. I could tell it was probably very artisty...and it actually is!

Some Ikabana on exhibit: My very first time seeing Ikebana in person

And I am going to safely guess any Japanese event wouldn't be complete if there are no strange stuffs going on...the sighting of the strange people in strange costume...They actually have a parade going on starting from the Cherry Esplanade to Osborne Garden....but we missed it...and then again we really didn't miss it...caz they were all over the park...showing off their costumes...posing for people...and just I guess were having a good time!

Needless to say, any trip report of BBG and Cherry blossoms  would be totally incomplete without the mention of beautiful Japanese Hill & Pond Garden and of course those gorgeous Cherries!

Japanese Hill and Pond Garden

And the beautiful...Cherri blossoms...and the amazing colors!!!!

Besides the things that we saw, there were so many other activities going on for kids, and then there was a tea-ceremony demonstration (which we made it...but for the lack of seating we ended up leaving..it was crowded and we weren't gonna stand for God knows how long and watch two people drink tea in front of us!), and also there were some guided tours of the various parts of the park, there was also J-Pop cultural performances.. (we got to see one)...

While we were watching the Samurai Drama (comedy based and one of the last performances for the day at Cherry Esplanade stage)...in the middle of it, I had it from seating so long on grass...on bare butt (well..almost) and was having way too much pain...so we decided to leave (hint to self : next time take a blanket or something to put underneath like other normal people did). It was all in all a very good 6 hours of good time (sans the butt pain)...!! I would definitely recommend this event for just about anyone to experience at least once! And of course this is an annual event, which means it's not going to happen again until sometime in late April-early May 2012! As for dining, people did take food from home, there were designated area for food consumption...and they also had stalls around that sold Japanese bento box to snacks to drinks....and BBG also has a cafe. And to save the day, Hagen Daz was there to sell ice-cream! There was also a stall set up to sell some Japanese souvenirs, which included from fans to candles, to Japanese coloring books for kids and post cards...! There was also some cute infant Kimono style onsies, and at $22.00 a piece, I passed!  It's okay! :) I did buy post cards (how can I not? specially $0.50 each and a coloring book for my lovely soon to be toddler niece! :)