April in Houston is a month of festivals. The reason for this is simple. It is a month we all wish could last all year. Temperature is just right, the heaters are off and the air-conditioning has not started yet. This cuts down on the cost of living (significantly) and makes all outside activities more pleasant or at least tolerable (cutting the lawn and such).

We took full advantage of the weather by visiting many (but not all) of the festivals. First, the Japanese festival. (Click on the images to see a larger version). This makes another comparison with Dallas anavoidable. The subject fascinates me because there should be no differences given that both cities are similar in size, are in the same state and only few hours drive apart. In Dallas the Japanese festival is sponsored mainly by the Japanese business association, with the Japanese-American Society present but not in a major role. The biggest draw is food, since just about all of the Japanese restaurants in town put up a tent and sell some of their specialties. The atmosphere is created by smells and tastes.

The Houston version is put up mainly by the Japanese-American Society with the Japanese business association not even present. Japanese food is almost absent and emphasis is on activities: ikebana schools, koi association (Japanese carp), calligraphy, martial arts demonstrations and so on. The Houston festival has an advantage when it comes to its location. in the Japanese garden in Herman Park. Unfortunately, the Herman Park is essentially in the center of Houston and consequently a little bit of an expedition from where we live. The nice thing about the Dallas venue was that it was on Flag Hill, about 5 minutes from our house.

Every year Houston holds and International Festival. The theme changes annually, last year it was Brazil, this year Ireland. The festival lasts two weekends and covers an area of several city blocks. It is a mixture of loud music, over a hundred of little souvenir shops, lots of overpriced (generally fried) food and throngs of people. In other words it essentially duplicates the essencials of traveling to one of the foreign tourist traps. Since here it costs only 8 dollars to get in it is probably a good deal.

Since Ireland was the focus of this year festivities, an Irish dance group was imported along with lots of beer. I tried to take a photo of the dancers but could not get close enough to capture the essence of Irish dancing, that is the ability to leap straight up from a stand still. If you like watching people, this is a great place to do it. Big and small, white, brown, black, jet black, stunningly beautiful and stunningly ugly including many people who looked like they could make it through a nuclear winter. Of course, in addition to the main theme there is not a shortage of local talent with South and Central America flavored groups playing the dominant role. Here is a shot of a group of Colombian dancers. We spend a fairly interesting afternoon and even convinced Monica to join us. It was not easy, but with a combination of bribery and black mail we made her do it.

The third festival I went to was the Houston Film Festival which specializes in non-studio movies. They were showing a Czech picture which turned out to be in Czech, Slovak and Gypsy (i.e. Romany) and as one would expect from an art film, I am still wondering what it all meant.

Meanwhile, on the home front the winter garden made place for summer planting of tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, okra and peppers (by the way we ate our first green pepper yesterday). Here is one of my winter cabbages and a Texas-size radish.

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