The Sendai
Tanabata Star Festival
As I took at these sights throughout the arcade, the number of questions I wanted to ask kept growing.
Along the walkway, I met staff members and volunteers working on the festival.
The staff members wore yellow T-shirts and were able to provide explanations of the Tanabata Festival.
The people in blue T-shirts were volunteers who were there to help tourists take pictures during their visit.
If I had been a visitor unable to speak Japanese, the volunteers could use a translation device to help them approach anyone they heard asking someone to take their picture, or anyone they saw using a selfie stick or standing with their family and trying to take a picture.
The happy smiles of the two volunteers I met were very contagious.
There were more people wearing volunteer T-shirts than I had expected. One of them gave me a recommendation for a very tasty place to eat.
I was able to learn all kinds of things about the festival and it made the experience even more enjoyable for me.
Tanabata, with huge decorations beautifully coloring the arcade.
Was it just me, or were these small, decorated bamboo branches in one corner of the mall the same decorations you could find outside Sendai during other July 7th Tanabata Festivals?
I talked to a staff member in a yellow T-shirt and she said that although it had been canceled due to the typhoon, there is usually a hands-on workshop where participants get to make the seven most popular types of Tanabata decorations.
I mentioned that if some of the materials were still available, I would like to take part in the canceled workshop.
I was in luck because they told me they would take me to someone named Ms. Yamamura, who makes the Tanabata decorations.
Inside her room was beautiful washi paper and many of the decorations I had seen hanging outside.
As I waited for Ms. Yamamura, I looked at the designs.
Being the final day of the festival, it seemed like things were really busy.
This was the decoration-making kit.
Finally...
While listening to her instructions, I carefully folded the traditional washi paper into a small kimono. I love this kind of delicate task.
It was a lot of fun to take a simple square piece of paper and turn it into a beautiful kimono.
Ta-dah!
After folding a red obi sash, it was complete.
It was my first try at this and folding washi paper is not very easy.
I made the left side of the sash too big...darn it.
But I managed to make seven decorations to hang from the bamboo.
Then I wrote my wishes down on a tanzaku streamer to hang beside them.
