Sakura in DC *Preview*

Sakura means cherry blossoms in Japanese.

I went down to the East Potomac Park in Washington, D.C. this morning to see the cherry blossoms. My heart was pounding with excitement. I’ve waited to see the cherry blossoms in D.C. all year!

Cherry blossom is my favorite flower. In my opinion, the cherry blossom season is the most beautiful time of the year in Washington, D.C. You can only see cherry blossoms once a year, which makes it even more special. Knowing that I will not be able to see cherry blossoms for the next 3 years at least after this year, I am determined to go see them as often as possible this time.

I looked up on google to see what is the best parking situation for me and I encountered this site. As you probably know, parking in D.C. is extremely hard. Plus, it’s expensive. A quarter in a meter can only last for 6 minutes. Still I decided to drive since I have two small children. One needs to be in a stroller. If I were alone, there is no doubt that I would take a metro.

I found out that there are 320 free parking (yes!!) on Ohio Drive SW on the premises of the East Potomac Park on the website. This Park is located on the southern side of Independence Avenue and Tidal Basin. I wanted to go to Tidal Basin for the cherry blossom viewing, so that was perfect. I looked up the location on the google map. Yep, we don’t have a GPS. We live with a conventional method of searching locations. I love maps though.

As I drove into Washington, DC from Arlington, VA, and got closer to the entry of the park on Independence Ave. and Ohio Dr., I saw that this west entry to the park was blocked and closed for the Cherry Blossom Festival. Oh no!!! It says “follow the sign for the parking.” Okay… The sign took me to the entrance on Maine Avenue SW and Ohio Dr., which I wasn’t aware of, but it worked out fine for me. I drove along the Ohio Drive SW.

There are numerous shuttle stops along Ohio Dr. SW. I parked my car not too far from the entrance and got out with our girls to wait for a shuttle.

The cool wind brought from the river was blowing directly to us and it was quite chilly this morning. I was there at 10:00 am. I saw a map on the other side of the shuttle stop sign and realized I was not far from where I wanted to be. I don’t know how long the wait was for the next shuttle, but I decided to get in the car and see how close I could get to where I wanted to park my car. Since I was parked on the east side of the peninsula not far from the entrance, I basically drove down Ohio Drive SW all the way to the Hains Point and drove up on the other side (west side) of the peninsula on the same road. It was a scenic drive and I enjoyed it. Since I didn’t have a map with me except for the google map I printed out which only had the general roads around the park, even though I was at the place where I wanted to be, I didn’t know it and decided to hop in the car and go see my friend for a play date.

I went there for a preliminary inspection for tomorrow anyways, I decided to enjoy the park tomorrow.

I would like to put tips here, but I feel the need to go back to the park again tomorrow to research a bit more before I put them on here. Stay tuned!

This is one of my favorite earrings. I lost the other pair today during the play date. Noooooooooo!!!! I’m sad about it, but I know that I shouldn’t dwell on it. It was meant to be…