Cherry Blossom Girl

So what does Spring + our nation's capital equal?  That's right, CHERRY BLOSSOMS!!  Okay, pretty sure a lot more is  going on in DC than flowers, but literalllllly millions of people descend upon the city to come see these pretty little guys.  And, for all the hype they are quite beautiful, especially when combined with all the other flora that is also blossoming, it makes for pretty happy living.

I must say, I love that there are people out all over the city now, but I happen to both work and attend school downtown, at the doorstep of this little gathering and hordes of people are making my commute a bit more of nuisance than it already is - I mean the metro trains are already packed like sardines at rush hour, now multiply by 10, all the time, and that means times when you can't even board the train but must wait for the next one.  Anyway, I promised my mom I'd take some pictures for her, so here they are mom.

So, as you can hopefully see from this picture, the real trick while taking pictures was how to get a nice picture of the scenery without 600 people in the background.  Pretty pretty tough.

So until I can make it to Japan, I'll have to hop from stone to stone listening to "Alone in Kyoto" by Air like Scarlett in Lost in Translation with these cherry blossoms - not a shabby alternative. Thanks for the trees Japan!

March on Washington Political Protest

Yesterday I went to an anti-war demonstration.  It was here in Washington, right outside the White House, thousands of people rallying - which was pretty crazy and awesome to see.  In years past there has been tens of thousands of people who show up to "march on washington" (literally the demonstration involves marching through the streets of downtown DC to different significant government buildings or businesses), this year there were definitely thousands, but more like 5,000 instead of 20,000.

Summary version of events: listened to some speakers, took some pictures, marched through DC, took some more pictures, got a sunburn (so glad it's warm enough for that!), ran into a guy I knew and ended up in front with the media, whoa, nearly got arrested by association when after a few protest leaders got arrested the people right next to me pushed a barricade fence into the SWAT team, iyee, come on people, peace, for real, I don't have bailout money.  I felt like a for real photojournalist for like 5 minutes, it was totally cool.

Well I took a buuunch of pictures, too many for a blog, so I think I'll post most of them on flickr or facebook or something, but I put a few here too.