One of the icons of “Golden Week” are the carp shaped kites you see flying around Japan. The koi nobori are displayed leading up to May 5th (boy’s day) and the image of carps swimming upstream symbolize the strength of growing boys. Every year in Sagamihara, which is about a 90 minute train ride from Shinjuku, they display 1200+ carp kites across a river. I was planning to go out there and see them but since I’m catching a cold and also don’t have a car at the moment, I decided not to go. It would be a good excuse for a top down drive but I don’t think I want to sit on a train for 3 hours just to go out there and back. Fortunately, Eddie made it out there on Monday and got some pretty good photos of the festival. I stole the above photo from him. Check out his post here.
Kirei! Can girls celebrate Koi-nobori too?
Wow, impressive!