The rain, cherry blossoms, and tears can all fall with infectious joy or breathtaking sadness. The Sakura Matsuri was held at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens on Saturday and Sunday. Every year around this time they have a collection of Japanese performances and lectures on a wide range of Japanese arts in the background of the falling cherry blossoms. You get a wide variety including: dance, music, poetry, and artistic botany. The crowd is also very diverse. I saw families, couples, friends, young people, old people, otaku, and hipsters. There were many people in cosplay but they hardly overwhelmed the normal patrons nor were they ever disruptive on the day that I went. I am curious if it was any better or worse on Saturday.
Most everyone I know went on Saturday and I went Sunday. This meant that Sunday was a solitary journey which lends a different feel to the proceedings. For some reason the whole day brought to my mind the 71st episode of Urusei Yatsura, Shinobu’s Cinderella Story because of the constant rain. I half expected to get drawn into an adventure of romance and danger. But that just goes to show what an odd person I am in the end. Plus I always like to picture myself as Shinobu. Maybe because we have similar personalities. Maybe I just want the ability to hurl tanks when upset. Still all the cherry blossom trees were in full bloom and you often saw blossoms littering the air and walkways. Although a popular activity was people shaking the trees to get the rain of petals effect. It was definitely a good weekend to capture the proper ambiance of Sakura Matsuri.
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