sprite writes
broodings from the burrow

March 28, 2008


my dc: kite festival
posted by soe 11:27 pm

Tomorrow (Saturday) is the National Kite Festival down on the Mall. It officially runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (although I’m sure there will be plenty of overflow on either side of that time frame), and the weekend weather looks to be perfect — mid-50s with a decent breeze.

These shots cheat just a bit, since they’re from last year’s festival, but I didn’t want folks to miss out on it. This Flickr badge is randomly pulling about a third of my kite images at a time, so feel free to refresh the page to get a different selection.You can see other photos of winners from last year’s festival by clicking here.

While the entire festival is great, if you can catch the Rokkaku Challenge at 3 p.m., it might be the most fun of the afternoon. Rokkaku is a kite fighting contest in which teams work to cut other kites’ strings and eliminate them from competition. You really do get into it, and the kites themselves are not damaged, although it can be funny to watch a group of people streak off down the Mall in pursuit of their free-flying entry.

But if you’re anywhere near D.C. tomorrow, make sure you check the festival out.

Bring a kite to take part; as you can see, anything attached to a string pretty much works. There are also vendors on the Mall who would be happy to trade you a kite for some cash.

Or just bring a a sense of wonder …

… like in Mary Poppins.

“Let’s go fly a kite
Up to the highest height
Let’s go fly a kite
And send it soaring
Up to the atmosphere
Up where the air is clear.
Oh, let’s go fly a kite!”
    ~Robert B. Sherman

Category: dc life. There is/are 1 Comment.



You get to see so many cool things in DC!

We finally watched Miss Pettigrew last Saturday and it was wonderful.

Comment by Debby 03.29.08 @ 8:49 am