Tanabata

Today is Tanabata in Japan. It is the Star Festival held on the seventh day of the seventh month every year. It is believed that on this day each year, the stars Altair and Vega, lovers separated by the Milky Way, come into alignment and are finally allowed to be together for one night. It is also believed that any wish you make on this day will come true. You write your wish on a strip of paper, called tanzaku, and hang it from a bamboo tree. All around our city, their are wishes hanging up in local businesses. It's so neat!
So, today, Cash and I went to a Tanabata party at WaHaHa, the local playgroup. We learned the lovers' story, sang the Tanabata song, and ate cucumbers, the official vegetable of summer and Tanabata! It was really fun.
A wishing tree:

Cash helps to sing the Tanabata song:

Kids traveling through the "river of stars" (aka a streamer Milky Way):


And finally, here's a short video of singing time. The woman next to me is Kumiko, holding her son Kaichi. Kumiko is my translator at baby group--her English is excellent! She is due with her second baby a few weeks before me. Cash was wandering around by this point: