Tohoku Day 1

Landed in the morning after a 7-hour flight and boarded a bus for Sendai.

Bento for lunch! Beautifully wrapped as always (:

Inside, delicious! I love all the little side dishes^^

The vegetarians' meal, looks delish too!

After 6 hours on the bus, we finally reached Sendai. As we would be enjoying the Sendai Tanabata Matsuri a few days later, they taught us how to make some of the pretty nanatsu kazari decorations~!

The Sendai Tanabata Matsuri will be held on 6,7,8 of August this year.

Each and every piece of decoration in the festival is handmade with washi, Japanese paper.

I made a kinchaku! (purse)

It's to wish for thriftiness, good business and wealth.

The paper is pretty~

With everything else my team members made~

Most of them made kamigoromo (paper kimonos)

Never give up!

Then, we attended speeches regarding volunteering and the status of Tohoku by Professor Kawamura and Mr Abe respectively, followed by a dinner reception of foods using mostly locally produced ingredients.

Performance on Sendai's history.

And they gifted all 100 of us each a pretty mini set of tanabata decorations on a bamboo!