International Relations Pagoda

Amid all the cherry blossoms in the Tidal Basin, which were at peak bloom last Thursday, two days before this picture was taken, there stands a pagoda, first given to the  US by Japan in 1854,a century before the trees, as a symbol of friendship between the two countries.  Oddly enough, nowadays it stands right outside the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. The crowds on Saturday were thick indeed.