The 60th Cherry Blossom Festival hosted its Green Tea Contestant Reception at Rumours Nightclub in the Ala Moana Hotel on March 3. The club opened its doors at 5 p.m. and the party lasted till 8 p.m.
Tickets were $15 if attendees bought them for pre-sale from one of the Cherry Blossom contestants or $25 at the door. Once inside the 21-and-older club, clubbers had to fight their way through the sea of other green-clad people —the green tea theme encouraged patrons to show up in green attire — to find the contestants selling raffle tickets. The prizes for the raffle included gift certificates and overnight stays at hotels.
The program began at 6 p.m. with freelance writer and KCC journalism instructor Catherine Toth co-emceeing with Sean Uyehara, news anchor for Hawaii News Now. Together they introduced the 15 Cherry Blossom Queen contestants.
The contestants came onto the dance floor and entered the dance cages in pairs. From there they participated in mini games such as thumb war, blindfolded origami folding, balloon blowing and an iPhone texting contest. The ladies faced off two-on-two, except for the last group that was a group of three, and battled it out on the dance floor.
Once all 15 ladies finished competing, raffle tickets were drawn and the emcees asked for five audience members to participate in another event.
Staying with the green tea theme, the five men that volunteered had to gobble down two green tea-flavored coco puffs from Liliha Bakery. The person who cleaned his plate the fastest won a framed gyotaku picture.
The only thing that was left was to dance the night away. But it took a while for the guests to dance because no one wanted to be the first on the dance floor. Toth had to coax the previous Cherry Blossom contestants that were there to start dancing but once the DJ played the “Cupid Shuffle” ladies of all ages swarmed the floor.
Soon enough, 8 o’clock arrived and the night came to a close. The attendees said goodbye to each other and promised to see one another soon.
The next and final public appearance that the Cherry Blossom contestants will be participating in is at Pearlridge Shopping Center on March 10. The Festival Ball will be held on March 31 at the Hawai‘i Theatre and the 60th Cherry Blossom Queen will be crowned.