Tanabata Festival

​Tanabata is one of the many known festivals in Japan. Tanabata represents the yearning of two star crossed lovers who separated after marriage and only the opportunity to meet each other once a year on 7th of July. Princess Orihime was a weaver who was lonely making her sad. Her father decided to take things into his own hands and arrange a marriage with Hikoboshi who was a cow herder. ​They both fell in love so much that they neglected their jobs. People got angry which angered her father causing him to separate them. Seeing princess Orihime sad lead to her father making this decision that they were allowed to see each other only on the 7th of July. This caused them to work hard and get their done as they patiently waited for this day to come. During Tanabata people make wished and tie it on the bamboo tree hoping that their wished can be heard. 

In Jishukan, the only day the students get a day off is Sunday. A Sunday for Jishukan students is considered a weekend. Lucky for us it was the 7th of July where in Japan it is the day of Tanabata festival. After spending time with my family, my buddy Rie and me caught a train to Hirastuka where we met up with all our friends. Here I got to meet some more new friends. 

The first group of friends that I made were Rie, Issa, Mitsuki, Mahiro, Suzumi, Rena and Yuhi. These are the names that I will forever remember. They were all really knid and fun to be with as they always kept trying to know more about me as I was trying to know more about them. Interesting things I found out was that Issa has been to New Zealand and Australia for an exchange and he has really good English. Mitsuki loves tennis and has cute English. Mahiro is the scholar in Jishukan, he can speak English really well and in the future he wants to be a doctor. Suzumi loves dancing and we both love Kpop, Rena loves to play basketball and Yuhi loves baseball as he is huge a fan of Hanshin Tigers. This group of friends, I would never forget them as they were the ones who helped me the most in Japan.They treated me as part of their group. They taught me the everything from do's to the don'ts. We gossiped about Who is dating who and Who likes who. I made such wonderful friends, as were always there to help me out in times of need. They will forever be remember!!!

We walked to the mall where my friends took me to an arcade. My first impression was WOW!. I love arcades so this was like heaven for me. This arcade was really big and colorful. All the boys had a go to the claw machine, unfortunately no one was successful. After a while of roaming around in the arcade, the boys decided to have a competition with me at Mario cart. I was really fun and sadly I came third.

Overall today I made lots of new friends, I wore a yukata for the first time. Wearing a yukata is really hard especially if it is a windy day and you are walking. Bad experience. Some other experiences that I had was going to a haunted house. Initially I thought it was going to be scary but in reality it wasn't that bad. My buddy who was scared to go, ended up crying. If she thinks that this was scary, I doubt she would want to go to spookers in New Zealand. 😂
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Today, I got to experience a new culture. I wore a yukata for the first time, I walked for 8 hours and most important of all, I made new friends, whom I will forever cherish and remember. ​​