Goodbye, my little cherry blossom …

Some of us, after a late night out, found themselves on a 7 or 8am flight leaving DC. Not fun! For many of us, who had 6pm flights, we woke up sometime after midday, and decided to walk through the Cherry Blossom festival one time before heading to the airport in the afternoon.

The famous DC cherry blossoms, as you may or may not recall, were a gift from the Japanese many years ago. Around this time every year, they bloom – and boy, do they bloom! They come out in a abundance of pink-white beauty, surrounding the basin on which the Jefferson memorial is based …

[this photo doesn’t really do justice to cherry blossoms surrounding the entire perimeter of that catchment. We’ve posted a (regrettably very grainy) video in the next post which hopefully depicts it a little better - or at least with motion!]

… and, as the blossoms come out, so do the crowds! See the queue for the bathroom …



… and photographers galore!



However, the absolutely amazing thing about the cherry blossoms is that they literally bloom over night and are all gone WITHIN A WEEK. That’s right – a 51-week off-season a year (and we thought business school students got lots of holidays!).

You can see how quickly they blow away – every time the wind blows, a blizzard of petals comes raining down, forming a carpet of petals on the edges of the lake …



Explaining why everyone in DC had come out there, picnicing, enjoying ...



It was a great bonus for us to be here at the same time.