I spent yesterday walking around VanDusen Botanical Garden experiencing Sakura Days Japan Fair. Started in 2008, this annual fair is part of the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival where you can experience modern and traditional Japanese cultural arts, cuisine and business.

Right at the entrance, there is a displays about Japan and how the tsunami affected the people. Guest could write well wishes to let the people of Japan know we are thinking of them and supporting them.




 Many people were dressed up in kimonos

At Cherry Grove, crowds gathered to sit under the blossoms and watch performers of song, dance and drumming on the Cherry Stage.

Singing - Sakura Singers

Seymour Taiko Drummers

 These kids, ranging from grade 2 to 10, are amazing! I love the drumming.

Cherry Blossom Umbrella Dance

 This dance is really fun and looks like a really good workout too! If you are interested, there will be a Cherry Blossom Umbrella Flash Mob Dance on Saturday April 14th at 1:30pm outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. For more info go to the Cherry Blossom Umbrella Dance website.


And of course the cherry blossoms. They are Weeping Higan Cherries or hybrids of them. Beautiful. The blossoms have just started to bloom so are not as intense as they will get in a week or so but still are very lovely. Almost everyone had a camera to take photos of them.





Besides the cherry blossoms, there were plenty of food stands offering all types of delicious Japanese or Japanese inspired foods: Osaka, Takoyaki, Japadog, Ramen, teriyaki meat skewers, seaweed, waffles, decorated macaroons, and other sweets.






I was really hungry after walking around in the garden so filled my belly with some yummy Osaka balls (shrimp and scallop) and ramen noodles!

Ramen

There were also other activities such as sake tasting, flower arranging, calligraphy and haikus but I didn't have time to visit them all. Here are some of the flower arrangements:



When guests left we were given a little gift of chocolate Pocky! How nice!


I also took a walking tour of the garden while I was there but there are a lot of photos so I'll save those for another post. =)