Cherry Blossom Festival in Japan Town

Each year in April, more than 150,000 people celebrate the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival in San Francisco. There is a Street Fair with food bazaar, featuring traditional Japanese cuisine and cooking demonstrations, a Japanese traditional arts and crafts fair. Queen Pageant and entertainment stages featuring performances by Japanese classical and folk dancers, martial artists, taiko drummers and others.

The main highlight is the grand parade which features over 1,500 brightly colored costumed participants and mikoshi - a portable Shinto shrine. Shinto followers believe that it serves as the vehicle of a divine spirit in Japan at the time of a parade of deities. The body, which stands on two poles (for carrying), is lavishly decorated, and the roof holds a carving of a Phoenix.

My friend Leland Wong, a talented photographer and a starving artist, invited me to join him to participate in mikoshi by lifting the 2,000 pounds shrine along with a hundred other participants. The four blocks long route seemed like eternity as we proceeded. To make the already massive weight worst, we were ordered to rock the shrine side by side for prosperity (the more vigorous we rock, the more luck it brings). Did I mention there were four Japanese devotee riding on the top of the shrine?

The shower later at the Kabuki Springs was refreshing, followed by a bento box with delicious Japanese cuisine. We even won some prizes and took home a bottle of sake and crackers. It was really fun to be in the parade and showered by "good luck" sake poured by one of the guys on the shrine in tight white g-string like underwear. But my shoulder ached for two days afterward...

My cousin Reiko later spotted a picture of me in the San Francisco Magazine carrying the shrine. Look at the magazine photo above and see if you could find me.