Each year we try to attend the Nashville Cherry Blossom Festival located at the Metro Courthouse and is held usually the second Saturday in April. The festival begins with The Cherry Blossom Walk at 9:00 AM, then the booths open up at 10:00 AM. The festival is free to attend, however if you park in the parking garage below the courthouse, there is a $5 fee. The Cherry Blossom Festival began in 2009 to celebrate the friendship between America and Japan and the ten year goal is for 1,000 cherry blossoms to be planted in the Nashville area.
The Nashville Cherry Blossom Festival has a lot to offer, there are tents where you can buy Japanese jewelry, clothing,household items and delicious food. All day long there are Japanese shows and music, as well as, karate demonstrations.This is one of the three stages where shows are held. At this particular stage, the karate demonstrations take place.This is the main stage where most of the activities are held. This is a group of students doing a Japanese dance.This is a bento box; it is a common Japanese cuisine used for takeout or home-packaged meals. They usually always have rice, some type of meat, and vegetables.There is sumo wrestling at The Cherry Blossom Festival! There is a kids area and an adult area. It is free, you just have to sign a waiver.The object is to either get the person out of the red area of the ring or to knock them down. When they are knocked down, watching people try to get up wearing the sumo suit is hilarious.There are so many characters for the kids to get their pictures made with.Fluffy is part of The Cherry Blossom Festival, the lion is just a normal person dressed up in costume.Deadpool wearing a suit and top hat stole the show. Everyone wanted a picture of him. He is just a regular person that dressed up, not part of The Cherry Blossom Festival.Many of the people that attend the festival dress up in Japanese costumes or Anime costumes.This was the Cosplay competition. They were hand selected from an application process a few weeks ago. They had to hand make their Anime costume which includes dyeing the fabric. The winner received a round-trip ticket to Japan!This was the winner of the Cosplay Contest. She is supposed to be Yazawa Nico from the show Love Live!
