Japanese Festival

 You know what the best thing about living here is?  Well, there are always things to do.  A couple of weeks ago we went in to a Japanese Festival.  Who just has that in their back yard to go to?  Oh yes, VA.

As part of the Cherry Blossom Festival, there was a festival in celebration of Japanese food and culture.  Heb and I bravely loaded Leo up and rode the metro in.  Incredibly brave, I know.  

I have a fascination with Japanese culture, it has always been on my list of places I must visit.  It could stem from a lot of things.  Perhaps it was that my dad served his mission there and we ate quite a bit of rice growing up (still by absolute favorite food) and saw the art that he brought home with him.  Perhaps it's from the time we traveled to San Francisco in middle school, a city that has a large Asian influence (that trip is ironically the one that also got me started making jewelry.  Pretty influential in my life, but travel often is).

The best parts were 1) the food was amazing!  

 

 2) The people watching was at its best.  You would not believe the costumes that we saw.  It's like hoards of anime fanatics came out of their basements and out to the festival in full costume.  People watching is one of my all time favorite activities.

3) Live entertainment is so worth seeing.  There were dancers, sword fighters, karate demonstrations.  But the best was the team of children drummers.  They practice for four hours every Sunday.  They were so impressive but I'm a sucker for drums. 

And 4) Getting to spend some time with the Blakes.  We like them. 

What a great way to spend an afternoon.  What am I going to do if we ever move?