The usual Tanabata decorations that color Palaceside Building’s summer are up again this year in the atrium of the first-floor and first-basement central corridor (photo above). Through Friday, July 7.
The Palaceside Building Meitencai (chair Hiroaki Okada, president of Sakae Co., which runs Tea Room Hana), a volunteer group of restaurants and shops, plans it every year as a “Tanabata Festival” so people can feel the season and enjoy a popular Japanese tradition. It has settled in as a summer fixture of the building.
At the foot of the east and west “Dream Stairs” in the central-corridor atrium, small pipe cages each hold LED lights imagining the Milky
Way, and ten pots of bamboo stand between the cages, with tanzaku of freely written wishes hung on them. From the atrium ceiling twelve large orange, blue and purple chochin hang, lifting the mood.
They have been up since June 4, and Chiyoda Heritage’s Twitter introduced them at once (photo at right).
Today (the 14th) is the tenth day of the display; people writing earnestly on tanzaku at the desk provided (photo at left) never cease… that may be a stretch, but the slips increase a little every day and there are quite a few.
Looking at some, familiar themes — peace, health, love, marriage, money — are of course many, but this year “work-style reform” has been in the news, so I picked related ones. As in the photo below, ① winning exams at a hensachi of 60 or so and smoothly ② getting an offer and a job. ③ Earning qualifications, ④ learning the work at the company, ⑤ contributing to targets. But reality is hard and unreasonable: ⑥ days of overtime without getting home, then ⑦ a boss with whom conversation does not work, and ⑧ a power-harassing old man… If it comes to that, ⑨ you have to stand firm yourself.
The Meitencai is running a “Tanabata Festival Grand Lottery.” Stamp-rally cards are given to those who eat or shop at member stores; one stamp per visit of 500 yen or more, five stamps earn one garapon draw. Draws are Friday, June 23 and Friday, July 7, in two sessions each day, 11:30–14:00 and from 17:30, and end when the planned number is reached.
Prizes are lavish. As in the table at the end, winners can take part. Those who “win” may join the lottery held twice each day (11:30–14:00 and 17:00–20:00). Prizes include the Mainichi Building Co. Prize＝4K TVs (2) and the Tanabata Prize＝PlayStation 4 (4), totaling over 1 million yen. Stay tuned!!
