Every year around the end of January or early February is the Cherry Blossom Festival up in Nago. Many different vendors will be set up selling food or offering the chance to win prizes by hitting balloons with darts and other such games. We went for the first time back in 2004 with our friends, the Martin’s. We decided to go one last time as we will not have the opportunity to go again before we PCS. We jumped on the expressway and headed north. We actually lucked out and got a parking spot right I the first lot at the base of the climb! We made a restroom break and headed over to the stairs. Ed and I took some group shots for some Okinawan families and then they took a family picture for us, same place as where we had our family picture in 2004! We began climbing! The stairs just go up and up and up! Vicki was bummed because her knee was still hurting, but she was quite humorous on the hike up. There are several different spots where there is number painted on the stairs so you know how many steps you have gone. I think the last one is 470. I think that is also about the half way mark…? It is an amazing walk as there are over 30,000 Taiwanese Cherry Trees. Not sure if that is exactly how you would call those trees…? Huummm…. We had gorgeous blue skies and the trees were in full bloom! It was nothing short of beautiful! Ty and Ryan ran basically the whole thing! They would stop at each level and wait for us. I wish I had their energy. Jorden complained, but very good naturedly, on why we were doing this, and Ed wondered out loud if he could bring his students up here for a pt run, obviously after the festival was over and during the week when there would be nobody here. We got to the top and watched some of the Okinawan’s pray. They pull on the rope, drop down some yen, and then offer up a prayer. The rest of the climb up is thru this like woody area. It was really pretty and I didn’t walk into any spiders this time! Yay!
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