United States
FOTO FRIDAY: JAPANESE LANTERN ON TIDAL BASIN
Every Friday I’ll be sharing a photo from someplace in my travels.
This week’s photo is of the Japanese stone lantern on Tidal Basin in Washington DC.
This stone lantern is one of two made in honor of Tokugawa Iemitsu’s death in 1651. The pair of lanterns were put on display in Tokyo’s famous Ueno Park, until this one was gifted to the U.S. in the 1950s.
Today it’s on the National Registrar of Historic Places and it sits at the newly constructed (2013) Japanese Stone Lantern Plaza. The lantern is surrounded by cherry blossom trees, and commemorates those that were gifted to the U.S. from Japan in 1912 as a sign of friendship. Each year the lantern is illuminated during the National Cherry Blossom Festival, as a centerpiece of the celebration.
