Cherry Blossoms 2010

Did you know that cherry blossoms last only about a week? Sakura is what Japanese call their cherry trees. There many different kinds of cherry blossoms, each beautiful in its own way. Usually, sakura blooms in the beginning of April in Tokyo area, but in Misawa, we only see the blossoms in the very end of April/beginning of May. This year, it was the first week of May that we truly saw what everyone oohs and aahs about.

So, on May 8th (the date is still in American time on all of the pictures), we decided to go to Hirosaki where they hold an annual Cherry Blossom Festival:) If you remember, we went to Hirosaki last fall for the Fall Festival. This time everything looked quite different! As usual there were a lot of Japanese selling traditional festival food--chocolate covered bananas, fish on a stick, kind of like American state fair foods. During cherry blossom season, Japanese come to parks where trees are blooming and set up a full blown picnic. The more food the better--and they spend a lot of time like that, "picnicing" with their family.

Although we missed most of the cherry blossoms because Hirosaki trees bloomed earlier than Misawa trees, we still got to see some wheeping cherry trees. We'll know better next time.

Any guesses on what this yummy brick is made of?

I would tell you except I still don't know myself. Gotta ask one of the other dentist's wife who is Japanese. All I can say is that it looked almost like a chocolate jello, or at least something sweet. I took one bite.... and then I had to walk around with it in my hand for half an hour before I found a trash can (For some reasons there were very few trash cans near the festival food stalls). It tasted gross, rubbery and fishy. I felt as if all the people passing me by where watching me to see how I like that ...."brick" of black fish jello.

Oh, we had lots of fun! My mama couldn't stop laughing:)

By the way, Hirosaki is also famous for its Summer Festival. So you might get to read about that too this August:)