Cherry Blossom Festival in San Francisco

Kristi Yamaguchi was this years parade Grand Marshal

Cherry Blossom Queen
& Her Court on parade float

'03 Cherry Blossom Festival Queen and Princesses

'02 Los Angeles
Nisei Week Court

Queen on Hawaii float

More beautiful Hawaiian Girls

Taiko Drum Float

Young Girls Dancing in Kimonos

Traditional Kimono Costumes

Older, Younger Dancers

Beautiful Kimonos, Girls

The National Cherry Blossom Festival is an annual celebration of the 1912 gift of 3,000 cherry trees from the citizens of Tokyo to the citizens of Washington, D.C.

Lady Bird Johnson accepted 3,800 more trees from the Japanese government in 1965. Japanese horticulturists were able to come to the US to take cuttings from the trees they had given us after floods destroyed many of Japan's Yoshino cherry trees in 1981.

The Cherry Blossom Festival in San Francisco started as a community event in specific reaction to the redevelopment of Japantown in the 1960s. When run-down Victorian residences were razed and replaced by modern glass and steel structures the festival formed in order to keep the community in touch with its roots.

Most cherry blossom festivals are carefully timed to coincide with the brief time that cherry blossoms are in bloom.

The Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival, as the San Francisco Japantown celebration is know, takes place during two weekends in April. The trees in Peace Plaza still held quite a few cherry blossoms for this years festival.

Traditional Japanese arts are showcased with demonstrations of martial arts, dancing, fashion, tea ceremonies and bonsai exhibits. There are also Asian food kiosks and Asian oriented street vendor booths like Kanji calligraphy scrolls, Japanese art and flowers.

Taiko drumming was traditionally reserved for ritual occasions in Japan and was not part of the cherry blossom festival. San Franciscos Cherry Blossom Festival has become a celebration of all forms of Japanese culture and taiko drumming plays a large part in the main event of the festival.

Parades and pagents to choose festival royalty are both American additions to the traditional cherry blossom festival.

San Francisco's annual Cherry Blossom Festival parade begins at the Civic Center and ends after passing through Japantown on Post Street.

The parade includes several beautiful kimono clad dance groups — each typically including a range in age from grandmother to granddaughter — scout troops, bands, schools, cars carrying various politicians and floats for past and present festival royalty in addition to several Taiko drum troop floats.

A large Anime Costume contingent in the parade reflects one of the more modern aspects of Japanese culture.

More Anime Costume / Cosplay pictures from the 2004 San Francisco Cherry Blossom Festival and parade including several individual costumes.

Other cities with annual Cherry Blossom Festivals include Honolulu, Hawaii which has celebrated the Cherry Blossom Festival for over fifty years. Women of multi-ethnic ancestry have only been able to participate in Hawaii's Cherry Blossom Queen contest since 1998, Macon, Georgia, which claims over 275,000 Yoshino cherry trees in bloom and New York’s Brooklyn Botanic Garden with 42 species and varieties of cherry trees.

Seattle, Washington’s Cherry Blossom Festival began when one thousand Cherry trees were sent by the Japanese government. (This link has good historical information on cherry blossom festivals.) Pasadena, California celebrated its second cherry blossom festival in 2003. The Los Angeles Nisei Week FEstival is in it's 64th year.

English language web sites covering some cherry blossom festivals in Japan include Hirosaki City, Sagamihara, Sunomato and Okinawa.

There's more information about and pictures of San Francisco's Japantown on iNeTours.com. And don't miss our coverage of the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park.

Take a real San Francisco Sightseeing Tour.