Cherry Flower Viewing in Nago, Okinawa

2011 Nago Cherry Blossom Festival was held Jan. 29-Jan.30. However, flowers will be blossoming more and more throughout this week. I'm expecting we have a full bloom in 5-6 days. For those who wish to have a quality time with your friends or family members, I recommend that you visit Nangusuku Hill this coming weekend. As I wrote earlier in my blog, you can drive all the way to the top of the hill where you can park your car and have a walk along hiking trails or have a picnic lunch on an outdoor table. The color of the flowers are the most beautiful under the sunny clear sky. So watch weather forecasts carefully and plan ahead for your travel to Nangusuku.

Weather-Forecast.com

Hinpun Gajumaru (Banyan Tree) in Nago

(Click here to indicate the tree's location)

Observation Deck on Nangusuku Hill seen from the banyan tree

(Click here to indicate the deck's location)

The banyan tree seen from the observation deck

The entire view of Nago City down town seen from the observation deck

Video of the landscape taken from the deck

(Unfortunately, grown branches of pine trees block the view of cherry flowers)

A few benches near the deck

One of the best view points.

The same benches (from the back)

Another view point just down the hill from the deck

Closer view of the point. A good place to have a picnic lunch.

Visitors can enjoy hiking along the trails through the cherry trees.

White-eye birds busily chirp and consume nectar from the flowers.

Udui Quadeesa, Loyal Dance

Okinawa, Japan, is famous for traditional performing arts. This particular dance is a type of loyal dance developed during the Ryukyu Kingdom era (Okinawa once was an independent kingdom). Quadeesa Tree (Kobateishi, in Japanese. Tropical Almond Tree in English) has large leaves that provide nice shades during summer.


 A young female is waiting for her lover at one night. But the moon is full and she is too shy. She doesn't want others to see the secret meeting. So she hides herself from the moon light in the shade under a tropical almond tree....so goes the story sung in the lyrics of the classical Ryukyuan song. 


This loyal dance is often performed at a night of autumnal full moon.

Best Place to View Cherry Flowers in Nago

Many people ask whether cherry flowers are in full blossom or not. At the time of Nago Cherry Blossom Festival held from Jan. 29 through Jan 30, it's only 20% full. It's going to be in full blossom within a week or two.

Why is the festival not held at the time of full blossom? Well, there is one good reason. We save full blossom for picnics or hiking in the Nangusuku Hill. The best place among many to appreciate flower viewing in this city is Nago Chuo Kouen (central park) where an observation deck is established. You can walk or drive all the way to the top of the hill where visitors are rewarded with a carpet of pink cherry flowers.

 
Click here to find out the location of the observation deck shown on Google Map

Nago City Cherry Blossom Festival, cherry flower photos

Cherry trees are not yet in full blossom. It is going to be so in a week or two. Hope I can upload some photos of Nangusuku Hill when the hill sides turn into pink. (Nago Cherry Blossom Festival is an annual event held in the city of Nago, Okinawa, Japan.)

Cherry Flower (Hikan Zakura type)

At this season, Hikanzakura cherry trees bear only flowers.

Nago Cherry Blossom Festival, Eisa Dance

Eisa Dance Performance by Nago City's youths. Although it was cold night last night, the youths performed the dram dance with energy and enthusiasm.

Nago Cherry Blossom Festival

Nago Cherry Blossom Festival

Ice Sculpture Contest 

 Ice Statue of a Japan pro-baseball rookey

 The festival area is now very crowded (at 2:30PM)

Nago Cherry Blossom Festival 2nd (fi

Today is the second & last day of Nago Cherry Blossom Festival. 

Today's events on Nago Main Street includes: 

   Parades of Decorated Floats & Street Performances (2:00PM)

   Parades of Court Dance (5:00PM)

   Sakura Daiko Drum Performance (7:00PM) 

Stage Program includes:

   Opening Drum Performance (1:00PM)

   U.S. Marine Third Expeditional Force Marching Band Live (1:20PM)

   Hip-Hop Dance (1:50PM)

Festival info. is available at the festival head office located next to the big banyan tree shown below. The tree stands tall in the middle of Nago Main Street and easy to spot once you are on the main street in the down town. The head office is the large white tent on the right of the tree.

(Google Map: The location of the tree indicated.)

Nago Cherry Blossom Festival Head Office (a temporal office set up for the event during the festival)

This is how today's sky looks like. According to the weather forecast, it continues to be cloudy but little chance of rain.

Nangusuku Hill (About 20% of cherry flowers are blossoming)
Appears to be more pinkish when it's sunny.

Nago Cherry Blossom Festival, Bright Night

The sun has set and as the night sets in, the air of festivity brightens up even more with the lanterns along the streets and the stairs on the Nangusuku Hill.


Lines of lights along the stairs on the Nangusuku Hill, on the back of down town Nago.

Street brightened up with the light bulbs of food vendors along the Kouch River.

Nago Cherry Blossom Festival Dancing Parade

Nago Cherry Blossom Festival has been held under the grey sky so far. Rain is the last thing we need. Luckily, we've had only occasional sprinkles, and the dancing parade by local women's association was held as scheduled.

This year, the ladies wore blight pint outfit, assimilating themselves with the cherry flowers here.

Nago Cherry Blossom Festival

Today (Jan. 29) is the first day of the two-day festival. Unfortunately, the weather has been unstable this year and school brass band parades have been cancelled due to the bad weather. Although it can't be helped, Nago City mayor and this year's cherry flower beauty queens marched down the down town street anyway.

A photo of Mayor Inamine (left) & Nago Cherry Blossom Beauty Queens in kimono, beauty queens from Hachimantai City, Iwate Pref. (in yellow costume) and from Takikawa City, Hokkaido (in light blue/white costume)  

Nago Cherry Blossom Festival

Here comes the spring. Here comes another season of Nago City Cherry Blossom Festival.

This flower-viewing festival is held annually in Nago City, Okinawa, along with other similar festival also held in neighboring municipalities of Mobobu and Nakijin. The festival in Motobu was held two weeks ago, and in Nakijin, it was last week. Nago City will cerebrate the coming of spring together with the blight pink flowers this weekend, Jan. 29 (Sat.) through Jan. 30 (Sun.).

Entertainment programs are scheduled throughout the weekend, as shown in the copy of the festival program below.

There are a few things that you might want to prepare before you visit the festival cite.
1) Since it will very likely be raining throughout this weekend, please bring an umbrella or a rain poncho along.
2) There will be no currency exchange service available in the festival area, so if you do not have any Japanese currency, you might want to change U.S. dollar (or whatever currency you have) into Japanese yen in advance.

The festival head office will be set up right next to the Hinpun Banyan Tree on the Nago Oh-Douri (main street) and an English-speaking staff will be stationed at the office for English-speaking visitors.

Here, I posted a copy of English language program. Sorry, it didn't come out clearly. Free copies are available at the festival head office.