The 2006 Cherry-Blossom Festival Parade

You might be wondering, why I did not post any American Idol review this week. Simple, as I said earlier, I hate QUEEN, so I think there's no value for me to post any such review =p I'm just gonna focus on posting the thing that really kept me busy for these past three weekends, especially on Saturday as I gotta go straight to the Indonesian Embassy for rehearsal, right after wushu practice. Yes, I, along with several cousins of mine, participated in the 2006 Cherry-Blossom (Sakura flowers) Festival parade, or precisely the closing of this festival, which dated back on April 8, 2006. I think (this is just my opinion though, I've never confirmed this) this festival is the only one made in U.S. in order to celebrate the coming of spring.

Washington, D.C.; April 1 & 2, 2006; 1:30 PM: First of all, I have to say I hate my outfit! We had to pick our outfits a week before the parade. The system was who came earlier got to pick earlier. So those terrible outfits were the leftovers, at least that's what I thought. So there I was, late because of wushu practice, got to pick the leftovers. It was actually a traditional outfit of my Dad's cultural background (tribe), North Sumatera. There were two types of this outfit, the traditional Indonesian style, and the traditional Melayu (Deli) style. I like the first type better cause it's a black trouser with an ulos sheet. The other one, the Deli style, is a plain blue outfit with gold embroidery, which I hate so much. Nonetheless, my cousin, Daniel Tobing (he's a batak as well), who got to the Embassy earlier than me, got to pick the cool one =p I got to wear the "golden blue" outfit =p (blah) Anyway, the parade was, I think, divided into four groups. My group (and Daniel's of course), which was with the Permias (Indonesian Students Association) Washington, D.C., got to be on the first row (we were to do a fashion show with some traditional dance movements to make it look interesting), followed by the kids group (this was the group which my little cousins, Rasha, Rishah, and Sekar got to be assigned. This group had a similar task to mine except that they didn't do any dance.). The second row was used by a group of young and older females, which was performing some sort of Melayu dance. The third row was used for Reog (East Javanese traditional dance) performance (this is the coolest part), and the last row was for Pencak Silat (traditional Indonesian's martial art) performance. Pretty long group, ain't it? =p Anyway, we picked our outfits on Saturday, and we did the Dress/Technical Rehearsal (we say it Gladi Resik/Gladi Kotor in Bahasa Indonesia) on Sunday, April 2. The rehearsal took like, the whole day, at Wisma Indonesia (the official residence of the Indonesian Ambassador). It was pretty fun, rehearsing under the sun! =p (it reminds me of those flag ceremonials we had to go through every Monday morning during our K12 education =p) The kids were such a riot, especially when there were bees around =p

Washington, D.C.; April 8, 2006; 5:00 AM - 2:30 PM: Finally, the day had come. We were encouraged to come to the Embassy at 6:00 AM because the female performers had to put a lot of make-up and their outfits were very complicated to be put on by themselves. I had noticed a week before that there was gonna be raining and a thunderstorm on that day. So, I prepared some extra clothes for the after-show. Woke up at 5:00 AM and headed straight to Dunn-Loring Metro Station at 6:00 AM (I know, I bailed a little late, but I was not the one who needed the whole make-up stuff.). Right when I thought everything was under control when the gate at the station was closed *sigh* I just found out, after 10 months living in D.C. Metropolitan area, Metro subways operate at 7:00 AM on weekends =p I was just about to head to my Uncle's place when a cab with a bunch of Hispanics stopped by at the station, as then I hopped in to the cab and made my way to downtown D.C. (there goes $40 and my debit card/visa check card left inside the ATM machine. I forgot to pick up my visa check card cause I was in a hurry, and I just realized it at night when I wanted to pay for the Pizza Hut delivery service =p Well, I had my visa check card canceled and now I'm waiting for the new one to be issued.) A nice way to start my day. The next thing isn't that necessary to tell, just a usual chat and breakfast. We arrived at the National Mall (not those usual malls, it's the large green open space in downtown D.C., surrounded by the Capitol Hill, Abraham Lincoln's Memorial, and Smithsonian Museums. Remember the one on the movie Forrest Gump?) around 8:30 AM while our turn to parade was scheduled at 11:00 AM. Rain started to fall right when we stepped out of the bus (there were 4 buses, and these were school buses. The first time I ever rode in a yellow school bus =p). The girls were starting to complain, including my partner (see my picture on the right). They were worried of their make-ups, their health, their outfits, etc. I had to joke out of it to cheer her up and got myself humiliated when I just realized I was being taped by the Voice of America (VOA) (no thanks to the others who just giggled =p). And you know what? This is gonna be broadcasted at several TV stations in Indonesia (the likes of RCTI, Indosiar, MetroTV, oh boy, they're gonna see and hear me pointing at the sky, yelling in Betawi accent =p) Anyway, I think we had a blast, we had fun when we started at 11:00 AM =) Well, the Indonesian group was the most unorganized group, at least that's what I noticed when I watched it myself the next day at ABC 7 or News Channel 8 (these are local channels folks, and Rishah got to appear on TV twice.). I saw that in the kids group, one of the girls left her shoe (kinda like Cinderella), and hilariously a group of 5 kids ran back to get the shoe for her (including her of course). Cause it was so crowded, we couldn't hear the music, so we created a music ourselves, I even sang dangdut =p (Alam's "Mbah Dukun") Our turn to parade around 10 blocks was exactly 1 hour. We got back in to the bus, and everyone was so quiet, tired and soaking wet =D We had lunch (of course, those delicious Indonesian cuisine =D) and chatted a while after I decided to go back and took a long nap (3 hours and then a good night sleep for like, 11 hours!) Below are the pictures of my cute little cousins in the kids group =)