Date: April 29, 1998
Source: The Cupertino Courier

In Bloom
Drummers, violinists and calligraphers bring the Cherry Blossom Festival to life.

Nearly 45,000 people gathered among 200 cherry trees at Memorial Park last weekend to honor Cupertino's sister city of Toyokawa, Japan. This is the highest attendance the 15-year-old Cherry Blossom Festival has ever seen.

"The weather was beautiful. We were so lucky," event coordinator Lucille Honig said. "We were very very pleased, and everyone who participated and attended it were pleased."

People came in from as far as Modesto and Richmond to bask in the sun, eat sushi and enjoy the traditional Japanese crafts and performance arts demonstrations, including the San Jose Taiko drummers and Sunnyvale's Suzuki violinists. Other demonstrations included flower arranging, paper-doll making and Japanese calligraphy.

"We'd had so much rain that to get a wonderful weekend combined with a nice event was really special," Honig said.

Photo by Grant Wernick