This season is all about carp, but the Hiroshima Carp, though recovering, stumbled at the start and are still so-
so. That is not why, of course, but the Palaceside Building's seasonal koinobori are off this year. Usually they "swim" cheerfully in the first-floor and first-basement atrium as in the photo at left, but this year the 10-day holiday for the Emperor's abdication and the new Emperor's accession meant more building closures (only three open days in the 10: the usual Saturday the 27th, plus the 30th and May 1), so the time to enjoy the streamers would have been much shorter and we rested them (instead, January 14–February 24 we held a yuzen-dyeing exhibition and performance — see this blog January 28).
In their place — or rather, not exactly because the building has no carp — cute carp can be seen in a corner of the neighboring construction site.
As many know, across Hakusan-dori Marubeni's head-office rebuild is under way; the carp sit in a corner of the site fence at Hirakawacho Crossing, the T-junction with Uchibori-dori =the part circled in red in the photo right above.
They are set in clear resin; up close they look like photo right below. A close-up is the top photo. They are origami.
These koinobori appeared in the April 20 Asahi Shimbun evening social-page serial "Promenade," the 17th installment on "Uchibori-dori" =photo below. According to it, the streamers are handmade by the general contractor's site supervisor; since December 2017 something seasonal has been swapped in each month. From year-end in memory: Christmas, New Year, Setsubun, cherry blossoms. Last summer there was a sea motif too.
I am one of those who feel warmed seeing them morning and evening on the commute. The article quoted the supervisor: "If someone is sorry when the job ends, that is enough." I think that bar has been more than met.
