19 April 2010
Cherry Blossom Festival
Posted by Roland under: Personal .
Somehow this year, I managed to go to all 3 of the days the Cherry Festival was on. (The first Sunday was canceled due to rain and wind…smart move probably)
Of course the content doesn’t change from day to day for the most part, the same food stalls are open each day, but the cultural events do rotate a bit. The big deal is on the last Sunday though, for the parade (more on that later).
On the second Saturday when I arrived at the festival early (so early that nothing was open and people were still setting up) I randomly came across a Japanese culture Meetup group that I had signed up by chance while looking for things to get involved in San Francisco (while I used to live in San Francisco I guess). And I mean relatively random. I had remembered seeing a random email from my group saying that they were going to meet up at Peace Plaza and while I was wandering around looking for something to occupy my time, I thought I recognized someone from the group sitting talking to someone.
Turns out that my assumption was correct although the Meetup turned out to be only three people! Nonetheless, it was a pretty fun meetup, if only just for a little bit! The group organizer, Kyoko, was kind enough to introduce me to another friend of hers who had a booth at the festival, Tomoko, who works as an artist in San Francisco and has some really cute works representing San Francisco. (When I get back to my apartment in SF, I’ll post up a few pictures from one of my favorites).
Tomoko would come in very handy the next day on Sunday since I was coming to the festival to carry the portable shrine (also known as “mikoshi” in Japanese) in the parade. To do so was nothing fancy, you just showed up at the local church early enough, grab some clothing and you’re set! Decked out in traditional temple carrier gear, I wandered around the festival, luckily not out of place (there were many others in costume, mostly anime) trying to kill time before the actual parade. Tomoko, despite having met her just the day before, was kind enough to let me keep my things at her booth while I waited for the parade to start.
The actual temple carry was pretty unorganized, but then again, that’s part of the fun. There were people much bigger and probably much more appropriate for the task, but anyone who had the right clothing to get in the mix. Most of the setup time was spent drinking sake…and then you would also drink sake on the path back (many people were carrying ladles with sake in them if one needed some, refreshment, along the parade route). I wouldn’t say I carried it too much as people much taller nearby put the temple out of reach, but I tried my best to stay in the mix, sometimes getting pushed out from the temple due to the crush of people wanting to get their hands on it.
Would I carry the temple again? Most definitely!
I think I would like to get more people in the group next time.
Unfortunately, no one else I knew was able to make it out, so I guess there are no pictures to be had of me in action carrying the temple…there is one of me wearing my outfit which I will also post up later!