A group of colorfully dressed girls performed an energetic traditional welcome dance when Japanese artist Takashi Murakami visited their elementary school in Banda Aceh, the capital of Indonesia's Aceh province, for a tree-planting event Friday morning.
After planting trees with volunteers in 16 places in the Tohoku region devastated by tsunami in March 2011, Murakami came to Aceh, which experienced an even more deadly tsunami in December 2004, to do the same.
But instead of planting cherry trees as part of the Sakura 3-11 Project he co-founded, he and the Aceh students planted champak trees (locally called jeumpa), because their fragrant flowers are popular in Aceh just as sakura (cherry blossoms) are in Japan.