I had two main reasons for visiting the Sakura Matsuri festival at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. One was to see the cherry blossoms. I’ve been tracking the cherry blossom trees online all month long. Cherry blossoms don’t grow in the Middle East or in India. So, it was on my bucket list to see the cherry blossom trees. And this year as my “Année du Christ” comes to a close, it’s so apt that after years of trying, I finally had the chance to see the cherry blossoms during peak bloom. Nothing and I mean nothing could have prepared me for how beautiful these trees are. 😲

I went all gaga over these trees and from the moment I laid eyes on them. I didn’t want to leave. I walked all over the gardens but found myself coming back here repeatedly as the day wore on. My only regret was not having a blankie just to lay down and look up at the pink trees as they slowly shed their flowers to form a candyfloss like carpet.

The cherry blossoms or Sakura Matsuri esplanade has trees in various states of bloom but most of them were at peak bloom.

Cherry Blossoms Esplenade Stage

There was plenty of entertainment. And I chose which events I wanted to attend. I was quite interested in Taiko drumming and wanted to hear it for myself. Soh daiko performed this very popular Japanese art of drumming. My video is very grainy and as you can see the sun was playing hide and seek. It was a very breezy day and did I mention how cold it was? 😬 Anyway, this was a very good start to the show. The crescendo of the drum is so powerful and there’s a flute for the melody. Simple, yet so captivating!

Brooklyn Botanical Garden

Due to the weather and the temperature, not a lot of plants had bloomed. The rose gardens and peonies are still weeks away from blooming. The tulips, though and poinsettias have flowered spectacularly.

I have no idea what the majority of the flowers are even the last yellow and red combination flowers which I absolutely loved. The vibrant colors and the flowers almost dancing in the breeze were just lovely. I’m not used to seeing so much color. So I was more than excited at the sight of these than I should have been.😊 Aren’t they amazing?

Samurai sword style

There was a lot of emphasis on Samurai culture. What Samurais do; work for peace, serve their master and never draw their sword. There was this whole new dimension to the sword style play. And there were many dances to balance it all out. I couldn’t record any of it as I finally sat down and was so engrossed that I forgot I should record. I got caught up in the moment and of course had a good laugh and enjoyed myself. 🤭

Aquatic plants

Inside the conservatory, the temperature is almost tropical. The flowers here are mostly from creepers. The only flowers I recognized were the water lilies. The rest of the pond’s lilies and orchids hadn’t bloomed yet.

In temperate parts of the conservatory, there’s an abundance of ferns, I have no idea why. I counted at least ten varieties of ferns and then stopped counting. What I liked were the carpets of verawood and these plants on the right whose name I’ve forgotten! 😉 But I’ll post the pictures anyway. If you know what they are, let me know.

Origami and Aikido

There were also some origami training and demo’s. I’m not very good at craft and have no patience with paper. As I type, I’ve just had a paper cut from opening my own merchandise that I ordered and it hurts. No thank you, craft is not for me! So I stopped to watch some of the aikido demonstrations. And my! The techniques were so advanced. The dans who performed have obviously been training for many years.

Tea Ceremony

I watched the last tea ceremony for the day. It was a 45 minute wait to get to this event but it was worth it. I had no idea tea making was so ceremonial. Here too, the style is Samurai. The tea maker has been a tea teacher for 58 years. Phew! 😮 So they explained why they use green matcha powder. Did you know, that the guest is often served a sweet before tea, to prepare the stomach because the tea is so bitter! We were given a chance to smell the tea. Wa-kei-sei-jaku or “harmony”, “respect”, “purity”, and “tranquility” are the four key principles of the Way of Tea.

Often, the tea ceremony has a theme and is written on the scroll or kanji which you can see on the right. Ours was “Which is the dojo you go to?” And our tea teacher told us a story, a junior priest saw an older priest and asked him which was the dojo he went to, because he stayed so calm. The older priest replied, that the dojo he went was his own heart. If you have inner peace you don’t need to go to the dojo. And so our tea teacher was teaching us to make tea as a meditation. She says, you make tea using all your five senses, hearing the kettle, seeing the tea, smelling its aroma, tasting it and touching it. Pretty deep, since my idea of making tea is leaving everything to steep and more milk, less tea, please. 😆

Bonsai

The second reason I attended Sakura Matsuri or the cherry blossom festival was because of the bonsai. I could have gone to Snug harbor or the NYBG in the Bronx to see cherry blossoms but I had to see the bonsai. And so it had to be BBG. Why? Because the bonsai are featured in my latest novel, Bowled. In my latest book, the main female protagonist, is an avid bonsai curator. For the book research I had relied heavily on BBG’s pictures and their curators’ designs. From the cascade to the forest style, then the driftwood, the clasping rock, I’d seen all of them in pictures but I wanted to see them in person. And it was just so fascinating to see large trees, some over 600 years old, pruned to less than a foot high.

As you can tell, I went a bit crazy over the bonsai. I spent a lot of time here. And just as Rose says in the book, “Raising a bonsai is like raising a child!” I agree. I can’t possibly imaging how much time the curators have spent pruning these trees. In a few pictures I’ve tried to show you the wires and ties that shape the tree.

This bonsai is over 600 years old! How many generations of us would pass by in that time and yet, these trees remain. I wonder what the trees must be saying at so many people suddenly descending on them. What must they say about the noise in their usually peaceful surroundings. 🤔

Cherry Blossoms Festival

I closed the day with chicken teriyaki and ran out of battery. So no pictures of food, besides all that clapping and walking wore me out. So as soon as I had my hands on the meal, I walloped it as if I hadn’t eaten for days. The rest of the garden is breathtaking. The color, the trees, the fountains, the pond and all that green. It’s so beautiful. I had a very relaxing day. I can’t believe how peaceful and happy I felt under those cherry blossoms.

In a way, I feel life has come a full circle. I first wrote about the cherry blossom tree in SEOUL-MATES. 13 books and five years later after much struggle, Bowled will be released by Touchpoint Press on my birthday in a couple of days! Little did I know back then, that I’d ever get this far. I owe a great deal to my family, my biggest critics but my most ardent supporters for allowing me to pursue this journey despite all the other disappointments. Mark, mom and dad (how I miss you), thank you!😘 And to all my readers too, thank you! I am blessed and wish everyone a happy spring (if it ever gets here)🤭.

BOWLED IS ON PRE-ORDER

Bowled is on pre-order right now and will be released on the 30th of April.