Sakura Matsuri (Cherry Blossom Festival)

In 1912, the government of Japan gave a gift of 3000 Cherry trees to the United States. The trees are primarily planted around the tidal basin, but do extend up around the Washington Monument. Each year the National Cherry Blossom Festival is held to commemorate this gift of friendship. One of the many events held during the 2 week festival is the parade and street fair.

They shut down parts of Constitution and Pennsylvania Avenues to host these events. This year my mom's company Kokeshi Designs was a vendor at the street fair. Let me give you a run down of the day:

4:30 AM - Wake up...ugh

5:15 AM - Leave for DC. I drove with my dad in the big truck containing all the dolls. We made it into DC in about 45 mins to see the first pinks of the sunrise breaking behind the monuments. Very pretty. Last "sight" I saw all day.

6:00 AM - Arrive at our assigned tent location and see this:

I say to dad, were we supposed to set up our own tent? Volunteers tell us that because of the high winds, they are behind getting the tents set up.

7:00 AM - Unload the boxes into the street. Wait for the tent guys to get to us.

7:45 AM - Mom can no longer stand the wait and decides to put her feminine wiles to work. Takes her cute little smile and long curly, blond hair out to find a worker. Miracle our tent is the next one set up. Mom walks by car and winks ;)

8:00 AM - we finally begin setting up. Winds are so gusty that the one unsecured leg of the tent is pitching and pulling and lifting itself 3 feet off the ground. I stand and hold the tent leg down until they find us another cement block to secure it.

This is me making the international symbol for 'help me, my tent is blowing away!'

Tent leg is finally secure, but winds gust even harder and start blowing the dolls off the table. I chase them down the street. Retrieve them. We spend the next couple of hours laying ourselves like human shields over the dolls to keep them from blowing away. Mom does not look thrilled with the situation.

Out tent was located on the corner of Pennsylvania Ave and 14th, with really tall buildings lining both sides of the street. It was sort of like being in the canyon and pitching a pup tent in the middle of that insanely strong, cold wind.

My face feels weird, so I take a peek in the car window and see welts forming along my left cheek bone. I remember my body doesn't care for big gusty wind, or more specifically, for the particulates that a big gusty wind blows around. I'm thankful our tent is located right outside a CVS pharmacy. I run in and buy some Benadryl. I pop a couple. My histamines are blocked. Welts go away. I worry I will be too tired for the day.

10 ish - a couple of people start stopping by the tent on their way to the parade. We are still not set up. Thank you late tent pitching and big, scary wind. We sell one doll. We sell two dolls. We look up and exactly 15,000 people are swarming around the tent.

What happened next I can say with very little certainty. It's mostly a blur. Once people started coming, they never quit. It didn't matter that it wasn't 11 and the fair hadn't started. It didn't matter that we weren't ready. We were going full force and it was kind of a mad house. No way to tell who was next. No way to keep any kind of order. No way to spend the leisurely time explaining the dolls and their stories, the way we normally would.

I sat down to get the computer going (we used my laptop and wireless internet connection to process credit cards) and then I didn't get up again. I had my post. I worked my post. That cold wind blew into my back the whole time and after a while my legs were shaking so hard, I literally couldn't keep my knees from knocking together.

Every time I tried to look up, all I could see was a crushing mass of people. Dad (who was on his feet at least) said the lines were always at least 5 people deep all the way around the table. At one point a girl said to me "Wow, you guys need more people." To which I said "Yeah, well then we are going to have to get a bigger family."

Eventually I looked up from the flurry of activity around me and said to Dad, "I don't feel so good. What time is it?" He replied "4 pm!" Well, no wonder. No food, nothing to drink...up since 4:30 AM. He handed me a bottle of water and a handful of Ritz crackers (which I despise) and I downed those babies in about 11 seconds.

At 6 PM, we were still going strong and the volunteers were literally kicking people out of the booth. We packed up and realized we hadn't taken any pictures all day, so we snapped this one.

Naomi (mom's business partner, who was so overwhelmed by the crushing mass of people clamoring for a doll that she spent the day pretending she didn't speak English!), Mom and me

Afterwards, we went to dinner at my favorite place. We were like zombies. I ate my food in about 6 bites and I don't even think I chewed it (or tasted it) I was so hungry I was literally just shoving food in and swallowing it whole (well not quite, but certainly cleaned my plate and I didn't savor as a normally would. I'm a big savorer.).

We had a very successful day at the street fair and we talked a lot over the weekend about a better game plan for next year. In the moment, it was literally so intense my brain switched into professional auto pilot. In retrospect, it was fun. It was exciting to see people's enthusiasm for the dolls. It was great to see people come back and make purchases two and three times. I'm excited to go again next year, though next time I'm eating a much bigger breakfast beforehand and taking a coke and some gloves!

A few other pics from that day: