This weekend was the Tanabata Festival (七夕まつり), a Japanese star festival. It celebrates the milky way and the coming together of two stars that only happens once a year. It's traditionally on the 7th day of the 7th month, but in Hokkaido it's usually have it a bit later. It ran for the entire weekend and consisted of a parade, school concerts, a food pavilion, comedian, live music, bingo (it's apparently very popular here), traditional dancing, a kids corner, hip-hop groups, and fireworks. There was also a showcase of posters made by different groups throughout the city and the entire main street was strung up with paper lanterns. Also during this festival it's tradition to write your wish on a piece of paper and tie it to a bamboo tree. It's been rainy here all weekend so it put a little bit of a damper on the festival. There were supposed to be a big fireworks display tonight but it's postponed until tomorrow night.

I got a clip of some Yosakoi dancing with my digital camera. The quality isn't the greatest and I was moving it around a bit but you get the idea. It was pretty amazing to see live.

I also tried out the local cuisine, including squid-on-a-stick... it was quite chewy.