Posted on Wednesday, August 06, 2008 5:02 PM
The first large festival of this holiday today; the
Tanabata Festival in Sendai. The festival celebrates the meeting of Orihime and Hikoboshi. The Milky Way, a river made from stars that crosses the sky, separates these lovers, and they are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. Since the original Tanabata date was based on the Japanese lunisolar calendar (which is about a month behind the Gregorian calendar), some festivals are held on July 7 and some are held on a few days around August 7.
The Sendai festival started today.
The day was filled with all kinds of streamers:
...and cute girls in yukata (a summer kimono):
At Sendai Station, a group of school girls helped out and they were kind enough to pose for me:
The real festivities are held at night (since the stars come out at night), but because of the long travel time and our tiredness, we decided to go home around 20:15.
The ride went smooth, apart from one thing; an American woman saw my shirt and announced that she was in Amsterdam once, which apparently makes it that we have something in common.
Most Americans I meet in Japan are the kind, social types who know how to behave in other countries.
This woman was none of the above. She started talking to me at one point (about 20 minutes before we would arrive in Ueno) and where I maintained a low voice and short answers, she started talking louder and louder.
When she left to throw some rubbish away, I apologised towards the people around me, because I could hear one of them mumble an "urusei" (she's loud). This woman was obviously the type that hear, but don't listen, as she was convinced I must be a student because I stayed in Takadanobaba, which is a district with a lot of schools, despite me telling her that I'm 33 and left my student years behind me a long time ago.
Stupid woman.
We disembarked in Ueno, but unfortunately, she did as well, so we made a run for it. ;)
She's the kind of person why I keep wearing my "I'm not an American"-shirts.
Cheers, K.