Our family went today to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Little Tokyo.I had expected that this would be a smaller version of the annual Nisei Week festival in August (without a parade). We parked on the street near the Los Angeles Times building and walked about four blocks to San Pedro Street, which was blocked off between 1st and 3rd Streets, as well as 2nd Street between Los Angeles Street and Alameda.
There were three stages (Japanese culture, Hawaiian culture, and martial arts), as well as five or six dozen vendors and information booths in rows along San Pedro and 2nd Streets. The Hawaiian dancers and musicians were excellent, as was a traditional Japanese dance that we saw.
We signed up for a couple of contests, checked out the vendors, ran into some friends and acquaintances. We tried Pinkberry frozen yogurt for the first time (there is a new location on 2nd Street). Our kids did arts and crafts and made Chinese lanterns (at the Chinese American Museum booth) and Japanese kites and other assorted things at the festival kids' activity booth.
Although a lot of the vendors were selling things not related at all to Japanese culture (including a cooking infomercial-style show), the festival was a fun way to spend some time in Little Tokyo being entertained by cultural demonstrations and doing some children's activities.
