More on the festival and then around my neighborhood

 As I was heading for the subway station to return home, I passed a TV news crew. The festival turned out to be bigger news than they expected because of the huge numbers of people who attended.

 After I took this picture of the kimono-clad woman with the beer, the man behind her really glared at me. For some reason, he did not like me taking the picture.

 I went out for a walk along the river and found that, as usual in summer, the walkway beside the river is completely overgrown with weeds. I won't be able to walk on along this section of the river until cold weather arrives in the fall.

 It was very hot and as I passed the soccer stadium I noticed that they were using a large, high power fan to blow cooler air into the stadium to replaced the hot air trapped over the pitch. Actually I have to admit that the grounds crew here are better than the team.

 Near the stadium there is a public baseball field. A lot of company and neighborhood teams play here. There was a game going on but I did not stop to watch.

Just as I turned to leave, the players on a team (junior high school?) came jogging by.  I don't know if they were warming up for a game, working out after a game, or being punished for losing a game.

Tanabata Festival Continued

 People crowded around a food shop, although most of them were like me, just trying to get passed.

 A display of little name plates. I could not figure out why they were so expensive, probably had to do with the materials.

 A yakitori shop. Yakitori is little bite-sized pieces of chicken that are dipped in a soy sauce based sauce and grilled over a charcoal fire. Delicious!

 A knife shop. I was surprised to see a knife shop among the tents, but they seemed to be of a very high quality.

 Kids' games. This shows one of the favorite shops for kids at this type of festival. The nearest plastic container is full of water and goldfish. The player pays to get a thing that looks like a large, but flat, spoon. However, the circular part is covered with paper. The game is to scoop up fish without breaking the paper. Any fish that you get, you keep. Usually there are many kids walking around with plastic bags containing two or three goldfish.

This was about the only space that was not full of people.

Tanabata Festival

 I could hear pop music so I turned up a side street toward the sound and found the entrance to an area with lots of tents. A very rough translation of the sign over the entrance is Festival of the six devils of Tohoku.

 I do not normally come down this side street so I had never noticed these parking meters for two wheeled vehicles. They have a lock on them so that your scooter can not be stolen while it is parked.

 I could not get in the main gate because of all the people. Everyone was simply standing still, listening to the music. I tried to go around behind some of the tents. This one was selling food of some sort out of the other side. I had to give up this attempt because the way was blocked so that the only place you could go was back to the entrance.

 I went back out to the main road and followed that sidewalk around to the real main gate which was to the right of where I had been. This side was also full of people so I did not try to get in. The music, by the way, was a live performance of a Jpop (Japanese popular music) group, but I have no idea who they were.

 This is the sidewalk outside the main entrance. The sign is the same as the one over the secondary entrance.

I gave up and crossed the road so that I could enter the park, Kotodai Park, where I could see many tents and a vast throng of people. This was taken on the sidewalk while I was trying to find a way into the park.

 These are some of the decorations that were hung for the Tanabata Festival. I believe that these are fashioned after the banners that the old feudal lords used to mark their processions when they were traveling about old Japan.

 This old house is only one block away from the previous picture. In Sendai most of the main streets are lined with tall reinforced concrete buildings, but behind them on the side streets there are still many old one and two story houses.

 This store has a large collection of potted flowers in front of it, but the inside is completely empty. Apparently the company that was here has gone out of business, a common event these days.

 At around noon the people were already lining up to claim space from which to watch the parade that was scheduled to begin at 4 p.m.

 Most of the stores along Josenji Dori were selling from booths on the sidewalk. From what I could see while walking along, these shops were doing a pretty good business. Since the disaster, I have seen a lot of people downtown but those people were not buying anything, just walking around. Here it seemed to be different, a lot of money, goods and food were changing hands.

This restaurant was selling food and drinks, including beer which is always available at any festival.