The Penn Stater Magazine

Cherry Blossoms and More

April 10, 2009 at 1:22 pm Angelica de Wit 1 comment

All I got from the Smithsonian was a T-shirt and this picture.

I’ve been interning at The Penn Stater since after Spring Break. The staff recently asked me if I wanted to write something for the blog. Being someone who’s fascinated with Japanese culture, especially their urban culture and anime (Japanese cartoons), I thought of my last weekend excursion.

Last Saturday, two of my good friends and I headed down to Washington, D.C., for the annual Sakura Matsuri or Cherry Blossom Street Fair. The trip was sponsored by the Japanese Culture Society, which is a student club on campus.

The club has really interesting field trips. Earlier in the semester, they sponsored a trip to Mitsuwa, a Japanese marketplace in New Jersey. Last year, we went to the United Nations at New York. Some other semesters, the club would hold a tea ceremony in Philly. The Sakura Matsuri is a trip they hold every year.

The trip basically included a ride to and from D.C., so my friends and I were given free rein to do whatever.

We skipped the parade since we arrived an hour after it started, so we went straight to the Smithsonian. We first visited the National Air and Space Museum, something one of my friends visits every year she heads down to D.C. As it turned out, it was also Astronomy Day, so my friend bought a calendar of when the moon phases would occur. We also checked out the Modern Art Museum with our heads tilted so as to figure out what the artist was trying to say about the world. Or something.

We walked outside of the museum, where we found several cherry trees in blossom. I took a couple of pictures, trying to get good close-ups while the branches were swaying from the strong winds.

I ran to the trees when I saw these. I seem to appreciate these more than the exhibits in the Modern Art Museum.

Finally, we walked to 14th and Pennsylvania Ave., where the street festival was. There were cosplayers (people who dress up as their favorite anime/manga characters) and people in yukatas, which is a type of summer kimono. It was a sight to see. We browsed the little shops and waited 30 minutes in line for sushi. However, I was sad that they didn’t have Pocky and onigiri.

After the fair, we walked back to Union Station, where our bus was, stopping at the Japanese-American WWII memorial. There were more trees in blossom, which added more texture to the sight, partly because the trees were gifts from the Japanese to the Americans in the early 1900s. We took more pictures, and now the wind was more cooperative. Here are some more photos from the trip.

Women in kimonos. I originally wanted to dress up in one for the trip but didn't find a kimono or yukata in time.

I love puns. We saw this tour ad at the street festival. Any guess on what this is referring to?

What winds are you talking about? These are perfectly still.... Yes, I was gripping that branch to get the picture.

A lot of the anime I watched actually have an episode about cherry blossoms falling. It looks like snow when the blossoms fall.

This is one of my favorite shots of the pictures I took.

The minute I got on the bus, I plugged in my headphones and slept the entire way back.

Angelica de Wit, intern

Entry filed under: Penn State students, The Penn Stater magazine, University Park campus. Tags: anime, Cherry blossoms, Japanese-American WWII memorial, kimonos, manga, onigiri, Penn State Japanese Culture Society, pocky, sakura matsuri, Sex in the City, Smithsonian Institution, sushi, Washington D.C..