Hamburg loves a good party and is pretty good at coming up with excuses to fest it up. For example, how many other cities in the world throw an annual birthday party for... their harbor? Buuut that's another story. One of the most recent festivals was the Japanisches Kirschblühtenfest, which translates into "Hey, friends! Let's all go chill on/by the Alster and drink beer and watch things EXPLODE!". (In fact, many German words can be translated as such.) This incendiary event has been producing OOHs and AAHs for over 40 years now in celebration of the friendship between Hamburg and Japan, and basically in celebration of cherry blossoms bein' rrrreal purdy. The Japanese community hosts some cultural events, the sushi restaurants in town start rollin' overtime, half the city paddles out onto the unsuspecting Alster waters in a colorful assortment of boats, the other half of the city camps out on the shore and grills Wurst, and all the waterfowl within a five mile radius are subjected to an apocolyptic nightmare and are then forced to spend the rest of their days shaking their tailfeathers for the tourists to pay for the therapy bills. Juhhuuu!
