Gakusei Travels

Sakura in Bloom

The cherry blossom trees are in peak bloom this weekend and D.C. is celebrating with the annual cherry blossom festival. From March 20-April 13, there’s different activities and events throughout the week, and many restaurants and stores have featured cherry blossom themed decorations and limited edition foods. The cherry blossom trees were originally a gift from Japan in 1912 as a symbol of friendship. Japan originally gifted 3000 trees, but many more have since been gifted. My friends, Makenna, Katie, and Nolan, and I, went out to the National Mall where the kite festival took place today.

So we ended up meeting Nolan later in the day. Me, Katie, and Makenna started off by getting brunch near home, because we figured down by the festival, the places would be packed and probably overpriced. And we right.

Not only was the cherry blossom festival today, there was a baseball game and other events going on. The trains were so crowded, there were several delays. It was so bad that the trains announced that it would no longer run to the Smithsonian station, which is closest to the festival. You could get off one stop before or the stop after. My friends and I decided to just get off at Foggy Bottom then walk the 20 minutes to the Tidal Basin and MLK memorial where the festival was. It did not make much of a difference time wise. And ordering an uber would’ve been pointless because the traffic was terrible and the prices soared to like $60.

We actually didn’t stay long at the cherry blossom festival. It was just too packed. All the stores had lines out the door. People had picnic blankets laid out on the grass. And everyone was trying to get pictures with the trees. I got a few nice ones of myself. I actually got lucky and on Friday at work, we got to take a trip down to the Tidal Basin in the morning. So no one was there. I managed to get all my nice pretty photos without the crowd then. I then got photos of me today.

Katie actually called out several people (good on her) for pulling on the trees. One girl she had told not to climb the trees had to have been maybe 10, and the kid gave her the strangest look. I’m thinking where are your parents? These trees were a generous gift from the Japanese and should be respected. They are not a jungle gym and you should not pull or shake the branches to try to get the petals to fall off. They are fragile and should be treated with care.

Like I said, we didn’t stay long at the festival because it was just too crowded. They had some Japanese performances going on and there were food trucks selling cherry blossom theme foods. Overall, though I think the aesthetic was just absolutely gorgeous and looking at the trees in full bloom is something I don’t think I will ever forget. The first time I came to DC, I came at the end of the cherry blossom season, and when I went to Japan last summer, it was also the end of the cherry blossom season. I think this was my first time ever seeing the blossoms in full bloom.

In the evening, our group was going to go to a basketball game. It was cherry blossom theme night for the Washington Wizards and we were going to meet up with Nolan later on to go to the game. Dealing with the metro was a nightmare so we just walked. It was about a 30 minute walk if not more to walk from the Tidal Basin all the way towards Metro Center where the Capital One Arena was.

Along the way we passed the Washington Monument where the kite festival was held so we got to see all the different kites in the sky. It would’ve been fun to participate, but I don’t know if I’ve ever flown a kite before in my life. I think the very first time I came to DC on spring break in high school, I saw the kite festival then. It’s always a cool thing to see but there’s just so many people. It was also annoying, because all day, people just had no spacial awareness. Like, the streets are packed. Why are you stopping in the middle and holding up traffic?? Move to the side if you need to.

We briefly stopped at a café to kind of take a break and wait for Nolan. My feet were hurting so bad from all the walking we did. The weather was absolutely gorgeous today. I think it got up to the 80s, but walking in that temperature for such a long time was so uncomfortable. While we were hanging out at the café, we unfortunately learned some terrible news.

Katie apparently saw on the Capital One Arena’s website that they had no bag policy. Me and her had our purses, so we literally had to leave the group and go all the way back home to drop our bags off and size down. Thankfully, by this point, the metro wasn’t as bad, but it took us an hour commute to go there and back. We seriously got our steps in for the day and luckily we caught it early enough, so we made it back just in time for the game.

Now for the basketball game. We didn’t really care so much about the actual game as we did just the experience. We were in the 400 nosebleed section. Still, I felt like we could see the court fairly well. The tickets were like $23 so I think it was a pretty fair deal. What wasn’t a fair deal was the drinks. The little can of beer I had gotten was 20 freaking dollars! Katie most definitely got scammed because she got a gin and Gingerale that was $50! And the bad part was, we didn’t even like the drinks, but it was so expensive we had to finish it. At least Katie got a souvenir cup with her drink.

We actually didn’t watch much of the game. Makenna is apparently a big Jordan Poole fan lol. The halftime show was pretty cool. It was a dance group from Japan and they did breakdancing and choreographed work to a few songs I recognized like Idol by Yoasobi and Otonoke by Creepy Nuts. I feel like every time I actually tuned in to the game we were suddenly up another 20 points and I was very confused. Lol. We spent majority of the time yapping.

Sadly, the Washington Wizards lost to the Brooklyn Nets 113-115. We left at the end of the 3rd quarter to go get dinner at DuPont Circle. When we left they were in the lead so I’m not sure how they lost it.

Definitely by the end of the day I was exhausted. My friends wanted to go out more and I’m like “you do you. I’m going to bed.” I had walked like 22,500 steps according my Apple Watch. I did not want to do anything else lol. But, I am glad we did do this today. It’s our last Saturday in D.C. before the internship ends and I want to make sure I make my last few memories with my friends before we part ways and go home.