Tanabata Illuminations at Shukkei-en

For a week up until the annual tanabata star festival on July 7, Shukkei-en Garden created a blue milky way out of LEDs and illuminated a line of bamboo stands on which visitors can attach wishes written on colorful tanzaku streamers.

Tanzaku streamers are available on a table under a tent and everyone is welcome to write their own tanabata wishes and attach them to the bamboo stands.

Once the event is over, the tanzaku are collected and stored until the new year, when they are burned with many other talismans at the annual tondo festival at Nigitsu Shrine in Furaba-no-sato in the middle of January.

You can wish for anything you desire. This one simply expresses a love for take-no-ko, bamboo shoots.

Only a relatively small part of the garden is illuminated, but that does include the walkway along one side of the lake.

Click here for more details about the Tanabata illuminations at Shukkei-en Garden.