Sakura Matsuri

I shot this photo at the Sakura Matsuri, the Japanese Festival that took place in Washington DC last Saturday. What a shame! They run out of sushi and ticket for the sake tasting…

Washington: bullets and metro colors

One of the firt place I used to go when I got to Washington was the Steam, a little cafe on 17th NW at R street. I went there often, because it was close to the hotel. The place is cosy: the counter with stools and a case for sweets, a dozen tables in the room and wide windows giving onto 17th street.
This is the Dupont Circle area, on of the most “chic” of Washington. We are in the North West of DC: this is definitely not one of the areas concurring to make the Capital one of the city with highest homicide rate. DC was 13th in this ranking in 2005, with 35,4 homiceds for 100,000 inhabitant; but the record is much worst and not so long time ago Washington was a violent and racist city.
Bill Bryson, in “The lost continent”, report his childhood memories about the Capital, a hot and dirty city, where he saw a dead man who had been shot in the head and was lying in his own blood. A place where whites could eat at tables in restaurants, while blacks used to take away their foods, waiting for it standing and then go and eat it at home, in the car or in the street.

Nowadays is no more like that of course. People say, and they are right, that Washington is a very clean city and, by the way, it is not so hot how Bryson remember it, since his childhood memories are all linked with his summer vacations in August!
On the other hand, the homicide rate is still high and the dispute about fire arms is still on the agenda (the Suprem Court is going to pronounce about the District ban of handguns, a reasonable decision that collide with the “cowboy” emendament about the right to carry weapons and above all with weapons industry). Only ten years ago the Washington basketball team changed the name from Bullets to Wizards to dinstance themselves from the rampant violence in the streets.Actually, Washnington is not a great example of racial integration yet. Just try to ride the metro and you’ll see how faces and colors and sounds change according to the line and the direction you are going.
Many asians on the yellow line, that stops in Chinatown. On the blue and orange lines, coming from Virginia, most of the people are white (in Virginia 73% are white, while in DC they are less than 40%). The red line too is mostly “white”; nevertheless, here you can hear more spanish. The green line goes to the South East, the most degraded: on the green line blacks are the majority by far.
Even mixed couples are rare, and you can feel the separation in the nightlife too: Georgetown is white as the limousines that drive around all these upper-classes sniffy boys and girls from a bar to another; Adams Morgan is just a little less white (and, above all, without limo’s boys and girls!); U Street and Chinatown are definitely black and Virginia is as white as the milk.
Yes, I know, the division is less sharp than I am decribing here, but I think you can really feel it anyway.

So, what was I talking about?! …oh yeah, the Steam cafe…

Cherry Blossom Festival

In 1912 the City of Washington received from Tokyo’s mayor 3000 cherrys as a symbol of friendship and good relationships between USA and Japan. A few dozens of years later the US returned the gift with two rare (and little less friendly) “mushrooms”: anyway, this is another story…
The exchange continued in 1915, when the US Government gave to Japanese people the “dogwood tree”. In 1981, the City of Yoshino lost her cherrys in a flood and Washington sent there the cuttings of the cherry’s that were vigorously blooming on the Potomac’s banks.
Finally, in 1999 new trees from the japanese province of Gifu were planted around the Tidal Basin.

Every year Washington celebrates the cherrys’ blooming with the “Cherry Blossom Festival”. Dances, concerts, fireworks follow one another for as long as two weeks.
On the Festival opening day I took a stroll in the famous National Mall. Armed with my photo camera, I headed for the National Building Museu, where the opening ceremony was going to take place. The programme was not really exciting: a Miss Universe presents a jazz orchestra and just at the end some more tuned japanese performance.
Anyway, I didn’t feel like staying inside a museum, while the cherry’s were blooming out there…

I walked toward the “Washington garden”. The park was full of kids who were making their colorful kites fly. The first pictures, with the Capitol in the background, did not came out well. I went through the huge park between the Capitol and the Washington Monument, taking photos of the children and their kites and two guys with long dreadlocks.
The National Mall is full of people and there is a long line even at the metro enter. Near the Washington Monument, I see the first clump of flowered trees and many people taking pictures. I took some shots too and then I keep on walking toward the Jefferson Memorial, where most of the trees are, around the artificial basin.
Of course, even in this bucolic scenario, they put the inevitable danger sign. In the bus “watch your step”, everywhere after just a couple of raindrop “attention, wet floor”, on the escalator “attention, lace up your shoes”, on the frozen food “attention, remove all the wrapping before putting in the oven”…
And now: “CAUTION, LOW TREE LIMBS AHEAD”.

MY PHOTOS ON FLICKR.COM