Today is Tanabata! But a rainy-season front is stalled over the Japanese archipelago, and the forecast is poor. The heavy rain in Kyushu is heartbreaking. Rain, please stop soon. In Tokyo, too, will it be hard tonight to see Orihime and Hikoboshi meet, their once-a-year rendezvous?
If it is not raining at lunchtime this season, why not spend a quiet moment on the Palaceside Building rooftop? It is open for three hours, from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
We have just added plantings to the planters placed around the rooftop, so the variety of flowers and plants has grown. Sunflowers, petunias, ivy, dahlias, broom, iberis, eremophila, verbena, marigolds, golden lemon thyme, dusty miller, abelia, conifers, olives and more.
It might be fun to check them with an app that tells you flower names. And there is one pleasure still to come. Rose saplings that have not yet bloomed have also been planted. When they open, we want to photograph them again.
The rooftop is an ideal space to refresh between work. Being able to gaze at the greenery of the Imperial Palace and the high-rise cluster at a leisurely pace is a privilege of the Palaceside Building.
Back to Tanabata. Of course July 7, in the thick of the rainy season, rarely brings clear skies. That is the Gregorian calendar for you. Famous events such as Sendai's Tanabata Festival are held around August 7, a month later.
The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan advocates a "traditional Tanabata." It defines the date as "the seventh day counted from the day that includes the instant of the new moon (saku) closest to, and not after, the solar term Shosho" (from the observatory website). Whew, that is hard. This year, they say, it falls on August 25. Yes — that one feels like it might be sunny!