My hometown, Matsuyama City, has 400 years of history as the castle town. An event associated with its history was held today in the heart of the city. It featured a costume parade of every period. One of the pictures shows samurai warriors in the early Edo period.
I belong to the Matsuyama Chuo Lions Club and the club was planning to serve a tea ceremony, called Nodate, to the public. Nodate literally means outdoor tea ceremony. I joined the activity and enjoyed the feeling of the start of spring.
Today was really warm, breeze-blowing and a desirable day for the festival. The last two pictures were shot in the Castle Park. The cherry trees all over the park burst into bloom. Cherry blossom is one of the national flowers of Japan. Most Japanese people love it. The cherry blossom in the picture is the kind called "Somei-yoshino", the same the kind aligned along the Potomac river. Somei-yoshino cherry trees only bloom for a particularly short period of time, and their petals seem to start dropping almost as soon as they've opened. The aristocrats of ancient days saw their own mortal lives reflected in the cherry blossoms that bloom and fall all too quickly. This dovetails perfectly with the traditional Japanese aesthetic sensibility that finds beauty not only in blooming flowers but also in the way they flutter to the ground. Some might recall the way the Japanese people fought in the last war. I believe that it has something to do with the above sensibility.
（これは我ながらうまく書けたなあと、自画自賛、、(^_^)
(Vocabulary)
costume parade 仮装行列
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