Cupertino Cherry Blossom Festival

I saw vendors, petting zoo, kids riding ponies/miniature horses, food court, and an amphitheater with outdoor seating on a hill with great view of the stage. I had a great time munching on a snow cone while watching the performers in full costumes and makeup walked by before going live on stage. Free admission and free parking! Such a fun weekend!

Animals are not for human entertainment. The petting zoo zone and the pony rides ruined the whole festival for me. Animals deserve better than this

Good park and fair ground with a variety of stores. But very few amount of cherry trees to see the blossom

Pretty cool! Got to experience east Asian food, arts and dance. Would highly recommend attending the festival.

Nice

The best thing to come out of this park. I love all the different entertainment here. They have indoor and outdoor activities going on. They also have a koi pond which you only see at the park at this event. The dancing is a definite highlight also.

Went to this event on the last week of April! The event was a blast on a warm and windy Sunday afternoon. Nestled in Cupertino's memorial park, it was the hub for vendors, lovers of Japanese culture, and the community to celebrate with cherry blossoms. The venue had convenient parking near DeAnza college, and it was about 10 minute walk to the park. Lots of independent vendors from cute keychains, arts and crafts, and local businesses. The heart of the events was the exposure of Japanese culture from taiko drumming, dances, and marital arts- all spotlighted in the center of the park amphitheater. All ages enjoyed the events! Their spread of food trucks were great exposure for those local business from lobster rolls, sushi, Vietnamese-Mexican fusion, and smoked bbq. If not food trucks, the Cupertino community stepped in to provide food like takoyaki, cotton candy, sushi, and more to please the attendees. Can't wait for next year's festival!!

Great festival with many booths, performances, art displays and beautiful flower arrangement/bonsai trees. One can spend many hours there. With activies for kids, kids will have fun too.

Good outdoor activity if you are looking for one. Lots of Japanese stalls selling cute Japanese items.

The blossom festival is back for 2022. The area is a bit of a construction zone. The "duck pond" is empty the grass is mostly dead, tree roots popping up everywhere. The mall next door gone and another construction zone. But behind all that there is a festival. Parking at the college is free, and mostly full but if you walk you can find some under the solar panels. There are a vast amount of shows presented both indoors and out. Here's a new concept, no paper fliers, all digital down load. With a 2 day festival , you probably saw the event you wanted to see or will spend the whole day there. There are displays and booths to fill in the time and buy some souvenirs. Not many food trucks for such a large crowd, I went late in the day and the lines still were long. Looks like a few sold out and closed already. Spend some time and you can learn about the Japanese culture.

i was so happy to attend this festival at memorial park in cupertino this afternoon, after many many years of absence. i couldn't attend in 2019 since i was out of town, and the last 2 years it was canceled, but 2022, it's back, and better than ever! they had the usual vendor & sponsor booths, and petting zoo (now $10, used to be $5!) but i felt they had more booths this year, especially inside the senior center. tons of merch and vendors showcasing their special talents! outside of the quinlan community center was a makeshift koi pond with fishies! and there were many food trucks and booths, selling traditional japanese food, dessert and alcohol. the main attraction was the outdoor stage, smack in the center of memorial park. they had dancers, martial arts, musical numbers, and many speakers/announcements. my favourite was the taiko drum presentation, it always has been in years past. mainly, i was just happy to see so many people gathering together, and enjoying themselves while taking in the japanese culture. it is so great to be back in person! parking is free and plentiful right across the st at de anza college...i arrived on the later side, so i had to park a little farther away, but i didn't mind the walk on this gorgeous spring day. tons of restrooms, porta-potties scattered throughout the park and inside the 2 buildings at memorial park (altho they were running a tad low on toilet paper towards the end of the day). did i mention this event is also free? i can't wait for next year's installment of this festival...hopefully i can arrive on the earlier side to take advantage of more entertainment!

I went to this festival for the first time with a friend the other day. The festival is free. So is parking. We both drove there & finding a parking spot late in the day was hard. I'd suggest taking Lyft there. I had to park a little far away in the B parking lot. Also, we were hungry when we met, so we went to get food. To our surprise, there were hardly any food vendors there! There was a very long line for the octopus stuff. They were fried balls with various toppings on it. I forgot the name of it. It was good. There was no line for the chicken teriyaki which was odd. They only served salad with the meal. If they just served rice with the dish, then I'm sure the line would have been longer. Most people don't go to these events to eat healthy diet food, especially not me. Anyways, they had some kids perform martial arts on stage. There were a lot of dogs at this event too. The vendors mostly had stuff for kids, but I did see a few really cool thing there. One of my favorite vendors there was the couple who sold handmade soaps there in various shapes & scents. The prices ranged from $1-5 for most items. I bought a ton of expensive looking soaps for only $27! One of them was of a fortune cookie in a spoon & two were of mini lavender unicorn face soaps with sparkles in a jar with a unicorn on top of it. I got gifts for three upcoming birthday parties there! So did my friend. There were no koi fish there or any cherry blossom trees that we could see. There was a petting zoo there that had ponies, chickens, and rabbits. They also had pony rides there for kids. It was still a nice festival though. We'll eat before we go there next time.

When in the South Bay, there's really only so much you can do besides eating your heart out, getting drunk off boba, visiting a nearby park, or going shopping at Valley Fair or Great Mall. Well, maybe that is a lot of stuff to do, but in my honest opinion, there are few opportunities for a Sunnyvale resident like me to come out and engage with the community. Events like the Cupertino Cherry Blossom Festival provide those rare moments where residents can all come together. During the last weekend of April, the city of Cupertino hosted a Cherry Blossom Festival across the street from De Anza College at Memorial Park. My girlfriend was interested in attending the festivities, and so we drove over there around noon during for the Sunday activities. The great thing about the festival was that it was located at the heart of Cupertino where every one in the surrounding area can drive or just walk over to the park. De Anza College has free parking everywhere on weekends, and so it's really easy to get to the festival. Initially, I was a tad bit disappointed in my impression of the Cherry Blossom Festival. I guess I had way too high of an expectation because I thought I would be walking into some Japanese garden. Instead, the festival was more like a cultural gathering of all walks of life around the Cupertino area. For instance, there were a bunch of booths with succulents you can buy, a line of tents for food, and even a karate show! I'm glad that we took the time to walk around the entire perimeter of the festival, because there was more and more to see as we went deeper into the park. If you brought kids, there were also bounce houses and games too! Even though it wasn't a giant garden filled with cherry blossoms, it was a fun stroll around into Japanese culture and South Bay life. Out of all the things that we saw at the Cherry Blossom Festival, the coolest was probably the insane number of Shiba Inus. Who knew that this many people around the neighborhood owned THIS many of the same breed. Overall, I had a really good time, and I hope they have this event again next year. I'll give the festival a "Nice-Su, can take your parents here and they'll be happy" rating! Have fun and prosper,

Cherry blossom festival-a great way to spend a sunny afternoon. Wander thru the arts and crafts vendors, cultural displays and performances, bounce houses, Akita, Shiba Inu and koi clubs then grab some food to eat while watching San Jose Taiko perform. Not a whole lot of food booths-sushi (futo Maki $7 was good), Yaki soba and potstickers were our choices. There were also chicken sticks, mochi, spam musubi, chocolate strawberries, coffee drinks and shaved ice. Parking is free and plentiful at De Anza lots A&B.

Meh-- Minimal sakura, empty koi pond, and almost no food vendors The fam and I were looking forward to the Cherry Blossom Festival after getting a poke regarding it in Facebook. We visited on a Sunday. Traffic wasn't too bad getting in and the parking area at De Anza College wasn't an exceptionally far walk. Once there, the community center "booths" had some cute things, as well as a Sister City exhibit. Stepping outside on a nice day, we really expected more Japanese and Sakura-themed options. The pond was drained and empty. Very little in the way of activities to engage the little ones. And there was little to really keep the attention of any of us. As for food, the only options were cotton candy, kettle corn, and corn nuts. Hardly the fare and fair we were expecting. Our little girls agreed that we should have gone to Santa Cruz instead. The reviews are good, but there wasn't anything there to merit the high marks from what our family saw.

This festival was really fun! They have so many interesting booths to look at. The community center is filled with tons of culture. Although the trees are not Sakura they make the festival feel Spring like with lots of flower displays. I absolutely love their outdoor performances. They have people from all over the Bay Area come and perform. I would say I enjoy coming to this festival over SF's because it's local and not as cramped. Plus they have shiba inus everywhere!!!!! The only cons to this festival is the lack of shade, and the small variety of food vendors. If they made it a huge food festival then it would be awesome! That way guests can sample various foods from Japan rather than Americanized snacks.

This was a fun one with lots of events to see. Sumi-e was really fun, enjoyed hearing performers play traditional instruments, viewed bonsai displays, Koi fish, so many cute Shiba inu dogs, martial arts demonstrations, and some nice snack options! It's really nice that the college allows parking on their campus for this event too.

I've been coming to this festival for the past 3-4 years now since it's so close to me. A lot of people come out to this one since the SF one is kind of a drive after a long day in the sun. The shows they do on the stage with the dancers and the kids judo performances, band, and etc are all very much worth watching and enjoying. However, some of the booths and especially the food is a huge disappointment. Most of the booths are advertisements for Comcast or food delivery your door services which are great but not many of them are actually selling Japanese items that you would want to take home. A lot of the booths that do actually sell stuff look like knock off items you would get in Chinatown in a little cheap replica store. I don't mean to bash on these sellers but most other Cherry Blossom festivals incorporate the Japanese culture way more. There are a few booths that sell Hapa clothing which I always buy from! And a few of the older ladies sell their homemade products which are also great! The biggest disappointment is the food. Yes they sell gyoza, sushi, shaved ice but none of it is worth buying. The gyoza tastes bland and a "plate"is sold with coleslaw. Which is just dry shredded cabbage mix with no dressing of any kind with some mush rice. The sushi is just California rolls- which is probably the most decent booth but they didn't even have anyone or anything in the booth when I came around 2pm on Saturday. They also sell chicken salad but it's Chinese chicken salad you get from Costco and can buy it yourself. I feel that if I'm buying these foods at a festival like this I want it to be good food that I can't really make myself and none of these things accomplish that.

PLEASE VOTE FOR THIS FESTIVAL in the new Bay Area Parent magazine poll! Go to 'best of the best' page at bayareaparent.com: http://bestof.bayareaparent.com/l/Silicon-Valley--Bay-Area-Parent-2017-Best-of-the-Best Go to the ballot - Choose the "Entertainment" category - Choose "Family Event- Community Fair/Festival" - Type in "Cupertino Cherry Blossom Festival" You will be asked for your email address, name, and zip code (and whether you want to receive emails - you don't have to say yes!). You will have to confirm your email is valid (by clicking on a link that is sent to the email you enter) When it says " Voted! 'Thank you for your write in vote' for Cupertino Cherry Blossom Festival" then you know your vote is getting counted. MAKE SURE YOUR VOTE IS BEING COUNTED! Polls close at midnight on May 21, 2017.

Such a gorgeous day for the festival. I missed the celebration last week, but the Cherry Blossom Festival is part if a Japanese heritage celebration that lasts a couple weeks. Free parking at De Anza!!! The festival tales place at Memorial Park and a couple of the buildings are used for exhibitions and art projects.