I didn’t go on my normal hike up Mission Peak today. Instead I went to visit some local home gardens. This weekend was the Going Native Garden Tour in the South Bay. For this, various people with home gardens consisting of primarily native plants volunteer their homes for visitation. It’s a good way to get some ideas on what sort of plants work well in the area, especially those that both look nice and need very little maintenance in this climate. A common flower to all these gardens is the California poppy, which also happens to be the state flower.

After touring a few gardens, I went to the Nikkei Matsuri. This is a Japanese Cultural Arts Festival in San Jose’s Japantown. It is pretty similar to the Cherry Blossom festival I went to yesterday, but I did see a few different demonstrations. One demonstration that I found interesting was Naginata. This is a martial art practiced with a long staff with a blade at one end. It was pretty interesting.

There are a lot of vendors selling arts and crafts, and of course, food. I had some yakisoba (fried noodles) and short ribs. They were both pretty good. There was also a stage out in the street. When I first got there, a jazz band was playing, which didn’t seem to fit the theme. Later, I saw San Jose Taiko perform. They are really good! Here’s a clip of one of theyr pieces (AVI format, sorry about the shake!):

San Jose Taiko at Nikkei Matsuri (15 MB)

Well, I’m off to China tomorrow, so I guess I should get packing…