"Summer Festival"

It's SUMMER!!!

Well, actually Summer isn't my most favorite season but I adore how Summer is being called "Season of Love"

Even the festivals in Summer are romantics and it's usual to find these festivals in romantic stories J

I LOVE ROMANTIC STORIES

Here are some festivals that occurs in Japan in Summer:

Tanabata

The first annual observance of summer is known as Tanabata, falling on July 7. It is a day that commemorates a romantic story, first handed down to Japan’s imperial court via China and Korea and then becoming popular among the common people, about the once-a-year meeting on a bridge across the Milky Way of the “cowherd star” and the “weaving princess star.” It was believed that wishes made on this day would be fulfilled; in gardens and other places people set up leafbearing bamboo stalks to whose branches they attached strips of paper on which their wishes were written.

Nowadays, Tanabata festivals are celebrated at numerous places around Japan. Some of the best-known take place at the Kitano Tenmangu Shrine in Kyoto, the Konpira Shrine in Kagawa Prefecture, and in the cities of Hiratsuka in Kanagawa Prefecture and Takaoka in Toyama Prefecture. Also well known is the Sendai Tanabata festival in Miyagi Prefecture, which takes place a month later on August 7, closer to the time of year when Tanabata was earlier observed by the lunar calendar.

Fireworks Displays

Throughout Japan, night skies in summer are lit by colorful fireworks as various localities put on fireworks displays (hanabi taikai). Japan’s fireworks technology is said to be the world’s best and has been handed down from generation to generation since the Edo period.

Today’s fireworks displays are often controlled by computers to enhance their precision and spectacular visual effects. In Tokyo, fireworks displays along the Sumida River have been famous annual events since the Edo period.

Bon

Bon or Obon is an annual observance to welcome and console the souls of one’s ancestors, who are thought to visit one’s home at this time of the year. It was traditionally observed around the middle of the seventh month according to the lunar calendar. At present it is observed in most places between July 13 and 15, though in some regions between August 13 and 15.

On July 13, welcoming fires (mukaebi) are lit to greet the ancestors’ spirits. Then, on the sixteenth, seeing-off fires (okuribi) are lit as the ancestral souls return to the spirit world. During Bon, many companies and stores close for vacation and since people who work away from their native places often return there with their wives or husbands and children, transportation facilities, as during Golden Week, become very congested.