Sakura Matsuri

The Cherry Blossom season is here!

To celebrate the arrival of the first Sakura in all Japan, my town hosted a small festival on 20th and 21st of January, 2007 on the famous Mt. Yaedake.

Okinawan cherry blossoms boast of being a brighter pink than the faded, subdued one of the mainland. These blossoms first start blooming on Yaedake and then travel south (within Okinawa) and then travel up north on the mainland. NHK cover this movement on national TV and cherry blossom tracking is an extensive affair in Japan.

I, personally, have been waiting since I was first told that Motobu gets the first sakura; keeping my eyes and ears wide open for any hint or talk of sakura. So, when the time finally came, there was no way I would miss out on the festivities. Brave Rachel was kind enough to come to Motobu for this short-lived event, and join the festivities with us, the Motobu ALTs (Paul, David and I).

The weather gave us a respite. it had been rainy the day before and everyone had doomed the event. But my prayers were answered, we had no rain that day, and in fact the sun even showed up for a brief moment to bless the occasion. We were able to enjoy walking around the matsuri grounds and eat sakura ice-cream and sakura mochi! and all of us bagged some goodies at the games.



Here's David and me trying to proudly present our town:

Famous Okinawan band "Afromania" orginally from Motobu, performed. They were quite good. And having not heard a live band in quite some time, I just felt transported to another realm.

Of course I bumped into many of my students. The brass band of Motobu Junior High School opened the festival, and a bunch of badly-behaving boys of the same school displayed some attitude and amateur break dancing. These girls played the sanshin:

As Rachel writes in her blog, there was a sense of lets-do-it-all and enjoy the most as our time here is measured, like the ephemeral sakura...