Cindy and I finally got to see the NY-based Japanese pop band "Happy Fun Smile" at the Sakura Matsuri (cherry blossom) festival at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens today. They played a fun set of okinawan traditional pop and Japanese chindonya, all of it high energy and highly entertaining for a packed crowd of garden visitors.
The actual cherry blossoms at the Cherry Blossom festival itself were kind of a bust since the blossoms weren’t actually blooming yet. No one seemed to mind though, enjoying the warm weather and checking out the cosplay kids and kimonoed performers milling about everywhere. It looks like the cherry blossoms will pop sometime over the next couple of weeks, if the weather holds. I’ll have to come back then.