– U.S.
More
than 100,000 spectators from around the world will flock to
Washington, D.C., today to see the cherry blossom parade and to have
fun at the Sakura Matsuri Japanese Street Festival.
The
parade will be awesome! There will be decorated floats and gigantic
helium balloons (think Rose Parade meets Macy's Thanksgiving Parade).
There will be marching bands, clowns, horses, and antique cars, like
a lot of parades—but there will be celebrities, too, including an
American Idol finalist, singer Marie Osmond, and Olympic skater
Kristi Yamaguchi. Singers will sing, dancers will dance, and cultural
groups will perform.
The
street festival will be the biggest Japanese street party in the
nation, with three stages for Japanese performances and more than 200
martial artists showing off their skills. There will be a wide
variety of Japanese and Asian restaurant booths, cultural exhibits,
and vendors. Anywhere you can see ninja and samurai while eating
sushi and tempura is great, as far as I'm concerned!
Create
cherry blossom art.
I
used to love this project when I was a kid. Get India ink, white and
red paint (tempura or acrylic), a sponge, drinking straws, and white
paper. Use the dropper from the ink bottle to squeeze a large drop of
ink onto the paper near one of the bottom corners. Quickly raise the
straw to your lips, place the other end to one side of the ink drop,
and blow the ink across the paper. Usually the stream of India ink
will naturally branch off; reorient your straw and continue to blow
each branch until the ink is dry. You can add more (smaller) drops of
ink, as needed, in order to make a pleasing picture of a cherry tree
branch.
Allow
the India ink branch picture to dry.
Put
some red and white paint onto a palette (or sturdy paper plate), and
use the sponge to mix some of the paint into a pleasing pink color.
It's nice to leave some of the white and red unmixed so that there is
a variation in the color of the cherry blossoms. Dab a corner of the
sponge into pink, red, and white paint and then dab cherry-blossom
splotches onto the India-ink branches.
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on this date:
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