Tanabata Festival

Early August was the Tanabata Festival.  I'd gone once before, but this was Melissa's chance to try on a yukata.  We had arranged for some of the Japanese ladies from Meysen to help her put it on, but at the last second they fell through.  We had planned to go to Tanabata with Janele, an employee and coworker of Melissa's, so we walked to her apartment where we tried to put it on together.

It was definitely a puzzle trying to put it on right.  Janele and I both reviewed youtube videos on how to do it.  We managed to put on the yukata okay enough, but when it came to the obi we had serious problems.  Turns out, Melissa's obi wasn't a traditional obi (which is what I'm used to using).  Instead, it was an obi with a clip on bow.  Something I'd never used before.  It took me and Janele forever to try to figure out how the bow was was supposed to stay on.  Unfortunately, Melissa was so skinny that the bow wouldn't stay on tight enough and it kept slipping.  Oh well.

Melissa in her yukata.

By the time we finished, there wasn't enough time for Janele to put hers on.  We had to run out the door and catch the bus.  When we got to downtown Sendai, it was already super croweded.  We found a spot on the road near the back.  It probably wasn't the best spot, but we were pretty tired from rushing and we just settled on that spot.  Melissa and I walked around the vendors looking for dinner.  Everything was ridiculously overpriced.  We had passed by a McDonald's on the way and I knew we should've gotten something from there.  It would've been way cheaper and much more filling.  But oh well.  Melissa seemed to enjoy the fireworks display, which lasted 90 minutes straight.  When it was all over, the three of us stopped at Baskin Robbins for some ice cream.  The line was really long, but it was well worth it!  That ice cream was probably the best part of it all!

Later that week, I took Melissa to see the Jogi Temple.  We took the bus from Sendai Station, because we weren't sure of any other ways to get there.  We caught the bus and it took us through my old town of Ayashi (where I realized we could've caught the train for much cheaper) and after about 90 minutes, we were at the Jogi Temple.  It was a long bus ride, but it was nice because we got to see the country side and the dam.

When we got there, it was super hot and muggy.  I immediately went for some kakigori (shave ice).  Melissa got one too.  When we were done, we walked through the main gate and started looking around.  We took lots of pictures.  Mostly me taking pictures of Melissa on her phone/camera.  We went to all the usual spots.  All the temple and shrines.  We went into the newest temple and I was surprised you could actually walk in it.  I've been there about 3 times previously, and I had no idea you could step inside.  We did and we walked around and found that there was a school or a little play area for kids.  It was air conditioned too and it made me want to stay there all day.


After that, we headed to the pagoda and tea house.  We took pics of the pagoda but when we went to the tea house it was closed.  We couldn't figure out why because it was still early.  Finally, we read on a sign that it was open every day EXCEPT for Wednesdays.  It was a Wednesday.  I was super annoyed and Melissa was bummed because that's the thing we wanted to do the most.  Melissa was a pretty good sport about it though and she was content with sipping tea at the tea house in Matsushima.

After that there was little to do, so we went back to Sendai.  It was another 90 minutes - 2 hours on the bus, but it was a nice ride since we had been walking around in the sun all afternoon.

When we got back into town, we saw that there were a bunch of festivities going on and we realized that the Tanabata Festival was still going on.  So we jumped off the bus and started wandering through the crowd.  We ate snacks and walked through all the streamers hanging from the bamboo sticks in the shopping plaza.  It was insane.  I actually recorded some video footage of what it's like to walk through there and it's crazy.  It's down below!