Sakura Festival, 2017

Every year in the spring, Japanese cities and towns host sakura festivals while the sakura is in bloom.  We attended Tsuruoka's at the Tsuruoka City Park on Monday, April  17th.  They rate blossoms by open they are.  We timed it perfectly as the blossoms were 100% open.  Oh my, it was beautiful!

Getting ready to open up the booths

Vendors come from all over to sell their wares.  They travel from festival to festival.

Chocolate-covered bananas

Tacoyaki (octopus pancake balls)  I've really grown to like these.

Fried sweet potatoes

Meat on a stick- yaki niku.

Okonomiyaki

These were kind of a pancake ball.  Later in the day, people were lined up for these.

You can also buy turtles. . .

And fish for your Japanese garden.  People buy them because they eat mosquitos.  They put them in their ponds in their gardens.

Chopped up octopus

The crowds gather

At the banana booth, we purchased chocolate-covered bananas.  You buy one, then Jon kim po (rock, paper, scissors)  with the owner.  If you win, you get a second banana free.  This is Ken jon kim po- ing.  He didn't win.  Tie goes to the vendor.

I chose pink, of course.

This is my favorite place.  The beauty is just breathtaking.

It is very common for families and groups of people to picnic under the cherry blossoms. 

The city puts up hundreds of these lanterns in the weeks before the festival.  I have noticed them in other cities as well.  They signify that a festival is coming.

It was fun to attend the festival and to view the beautiful, beautiful cherry blossoms.  We felt so blessed that we went that day.  The next day a big storm came in with lots of wind and rain and pelted all of those beautiful blossoms to the ground.  So it was a short sakura season this year.  But we have all of these beautiful pictures of it to remember it and our beloved Japan forever.