The Vaisakhi parade in Surrey is said to be the biggest in the world, attracting over 500,000 people! (See these aerial photos from last year to get a sense of the crush).

This year’s parade also saw the appearance of two of the candidates in the upcoming election for our next prime minister: Jagmeet Singh and Pierre Poilievre.

I was down on the ground, in the mix, surrounded by the celebratory masses with my older daughter. We parked in Strawberry Hill and then walked a couple of blocks via Komagata Maru Way to the corner of 122nd and 75th. Together we weaved through the crowd, catching narrow rivulets of people as they flowed this way and that, angling towards tents to get some of the free food being handed out, or find a better perch to see the floats from. We had some pakora and took some photos and video.

The parade goes from morning until evening, following a path around one of the central neighbourhoods of the city. We just popped in for a little while to see what it was like. I had only ever been to Vaisakhi in Kelowna, which is a much smaller scale, but still a very big annual event there. One thing that felt different in Surrey, besides the sheer size, was the prominence of flags for Khalistan. They were everywhere! Moninder Singh, the spokesperson for the B.C. Gurdwaras Council, said the parade was dedicated to the memory of Hardeep Singh Nijjar who was allegedly killed by the Indian government.

Despite the serious political context, the parade was light-hearted and joyful. It had a real matsuri air, something you don’t get that much in Canada. We had a fun and look forward to going next year when I hope to spend more time. See the photo gallery below but since there are a bunch of videos I recommend looking at the gallery on Flickr →

For the past couple of years in Japan I have been really enjoying the cherry blossoms. I made cherry blossoms the theme of the Micro.blog photo challenge last year.

Prior to that, in Kelowna, we didn’t really have the cherry blossoms… for years…

But now, here in Metro Vancouver, I have noticed how many sakura trees there are around the city! Cherry blossom viewing is a real event here, with a festival and everything!

Thus I was able to get a number of cherry blossom shots from a few different neighbourhoods this year. It really made me (and my wife!) very happy ☺️🌸

I collected up a bunch of the photos that you can see in the gallery below (or on Flickr)

Very nice to see this send-off of John Dougill, an influential member of the English-speaking community in Kyoto. I have a number of his books and he came to Iki for a few days while I was there. I had the privilege to tour him around the island and talk about travel writing. I learned some valuable lessons during that trip.

Here are a couple of his blog posts from Iki:

• Banging out your age
• Japan by Train 23: Iki Island

As per the Writers in Kyoto link above, John is returning to the UK for health reasons. I wish him a safe journey and better health.