Alexander's

I’m always very motivated when someone tells me of a seemingly fun and traditional japanese event. I’ve up until now never been disappointed by anything that is not in my travel guide. Anything that is in my travel guide on the other hand just reeks of tourists, masses of people, a lot of foreigners and not very friendly Japanese. So I try to avoid those like the pest they are and only go to events some of my japanese friends tell me about.

Probably the nicest things are small temple festivals or university festivals,¹ with the best traditional festivals clearly organised by the 慶応(Keio) University. Those students have mastered the art of combining tradition, style and fun and I’m always highly motivated whenever I hear about something from them.

So this time it was the 七夕 (Tanabata), which is like so many things here imported from China. The best part about this festival is, that a lot of people dress up in the traditional japanese summer clothing — the 浴衣 (Yukata) and there are lots of small shops where one can buy food and snacks.

So the day after I found out about this festival I ran to invite my friends, not knowing anything more than this will be a nice festival and there will be many girls clad in Yukata. What more is there to know about a traditional japanese festival? If there was anything important the guys in my lab would surely have told me!

Well turns out 七夕 is the Chinese Valentines day. To invite a girl out on that day seems to be like inviting her out on a quite serious Valentines date and of course as my luck would have it I found this out 15 minutes after I invited two chinese girls to come along!

I’m just glad that the Chinese guy in my lab was so very helpful:

What are you worried about? Just enjoy your dates.

In the end it was a very nice day. The students were very friendly, we ate a lot, chatted, had fun, took photos and there were some nice fireworks in the evening.

I’m just waiting for my professor to see the printout of me and my new girlfriend, that I put up in the lab. Since I hear about once a week, that I should stay away from schoolgirls (as girlfriends) he will be thrilled to see I spend 七夕 with this girl, but I guess it’s ok, since I was approached by her parents.

PS: The girl in the photo above was really cute. I told her, that I like her strawberry yukata and asked if I could photograph it. After a few photos her friend remarked:

He is cute and probably hitting on you!²

I’ve yet to see a girl hit her friend that fast again. I wonder what kind of Budo she is practicing.