Tanabata Festival

Here is the short version of the Tanabata story from the Savvy Tokyo website:

 The legend goes that Orihime (a weaving princess) and Hikoboshi (a cowherd) met and fell truly, madly, deeply in love with each other, and eventually tied the knot. But love—being the only thing on their minds—shifted their attention from work to each other. Making them—in the eyes of others—lazy and demotivated. Orihime’s father, the King of the Heavens, furious at their negligence of other essential affairs, separated them, sending the two to opposite sides of the Milky Way. Orihime became the star Vega and Hikoboshi, the star Altair.

Heartbroken, Orihime cried her heart out day and night, which didn’t help much in getting her back on track, as her father had hoped. Moved by Orihime’s tears, the king agreed to allow the couple to meet only once a year—on July 7. 

My town holds a four day Tanabata Festival every year. This popular festival always falls during the rainy season, but a big part of it is held near the train station in a covered shopping walkway called Ginza. It’s a family friendly festival with all the decorations, food booths, children’s activity booths, and a place to meet friends. Some people wear yukata - light weight summer kimono wear. I walked around the festival last Sunday and took a few pictures. 

Fujieda Wisteria Festival 2026

This festival takes place at Rengeji-ike Park in Fujieda, April 17 - May 5, where there are 250 wisteria trees in 20 varieties. The festival has been running for 40 years. When I attended this year, most of the wisteria were past their prime. It was still a fun time.

These fish were begging for food, but I had none.

There were many flowers in gardens around the pond.

These fish wind socks are hung all over Japan during Golden Week, in honor of Children’s Day.

I attended this festival in 2024 and posted about it here.

Bishamonten Daruma Festival and Iwamotoyama Park with Friends

On the holiday (the Emperor’s birthday) Monday, I met with two friends to attend a festival, eat lunch, see and smell plum blossoms in a park, and finally, drink coffee and talk some more. The three of us attended this festival in 2024, and I posted about it here. The festival is held at the Myoho-ji temple, and the dates for the three day festival has to do with the moon. I don’t know how it works.

If you don't know about Daruma dolls, check out this link, to learn all about them. In short, they are traditional Japanese good luck charms that symbolize resolution and perseverance in achieving goals. When you buy the doll, it has two blank eyes.  You color the left eye as you make a wish or goal, then the right one when you achieve the wish or goal. The next year, after the second eye is colored in, you can return it to the temple to be burned.

We went early, but this is a popular festival and a Monday holiday, so it was crowded.

There were many daruma vendors. The colors are for different things, like wealth, or health, or relationships, or other things.  My friends each bought one, but I didn’t buy one this time.

This dragon roof is an interesting feature of the incense burner at the temple.

In addition to the daruma dolls, there were many food vendors.

Then, we walked back to the train station. The train was decorated for the festival.

We had an udon noodle lunch. It was inexpensive and really good. After lunch, we went to Iwamotoyama Park, where there are plum trees in bloom. I had been to this park once before, but not when the plum trees were in bloom.

Bb

After the park, we had coffee and talked more, then it was time to go home. It was a good day.