The 2023 North Carolina Chinese Lantern Festival

Last December me and my mom drove up to Cary, NC, to go to the North Carolina Chinese Lantern Festival. We ended up going right before my birthday so we kind of made it into an overnight birthday trip. We went mid-week so it was busy but not too crowded. It would have been much harder to get around and enjoy it had it been more crowded. 

Anyways, we really enjoyed the festival. The displays were so pretty and fun. Some of them moved or changed color, and some had sound effects and steam to go along with the movement. There were interactive elements and overall it was a fun experience! 

When we arrived it was cold and then part way through our time there it started raining. And not just raining but that ice-pelting type of rain that made it even colder! As you can imagine, that was not fun! The place cleared out VERY fast! But my mom and I were determined to finish our visit! It was kind of funny because we were taking pictures and I looked around and it was like, where did everybody go? Almost everybody had left! 

We tried to hurry the rest of the way through because it was so cold, but despite that we did really enjoy our visit! We had never been to anything like this before so it was a fun, unique experience. I would definitely recommend visiting if you're in the area!

the North Carolina Chinese Lantern Festival is going on right now so you can see if for yourself!

Visiting the National Cherry Blossom Festival in DC

One of the things I was looking forward to after moving to Virginia was visiting the National Cherry Blossom Festival in DC. I have always liked cherry blossoms, so the idea of seeing so many in one place sounded wonderful! 

The cherry blossoms were at their peak the first week of April, so that is when we visited. I knew it was going to be overcast and there would be a lot of people on the day we went, but I didn't expect it to be so incredibly dark out and for there to be so many people! 

We went on a Tuesday and there were just SO. MANY. PEOPLE! Even with the amount of people we encountered, my brother (who took a half day off work so he could meet up with us!) said it's way worse on the weekend, so I am glad we went on a weekday! 

As far as the weather, typically you want a cloudy day for taking pictures as the light is better than full sun, but it was just really really dark and overcast. Taking pictures wasn't as easy as I had hoped! Especially since most of the cherry blossoms were white instead of the pink I was expecting. So either I had the cherry blossoms exposed properly and the sky/everything else way underexposed, or the sky/everything else exposed properly and the cherry blossoms way overexposed. 

It ended up taking quite a bit of adjusting in Photoshop to get everything evened out properly (I really try to minimize my time editing in Photoshop and just get pictures right initially, but sometimes it's inevitable!).

But, despite all that I am happy with the pictures I was able to get. 

Have you ever been to a cherry blossom festival?