JAL celebrates Tanabata 2009

Tanabata is a Japanese star festival. Japanese celebrate Tanabata by writing their wishes on a small piece of paper and hang it on bamboo. Japan Airlines will continue this tradition and provide an opportunity for its passengers to celebrate this traditional Japanese festival.

Between July 3 and 7 2009, JAL will set up bamboo decoration either at check-in counters or departure gate at domestic airports. Passengers will be able to write down their wishes on a piece of paper and tie them to the bamboo tree. But due to limited spaces in the tree, some papers might be removed before July 7. But they will collect ALL of the wishes and bring them to a temple in Sendai at the end. Last year they have collected 45,000 wishes from customers. If you visit JAL Tanabata 2009 page, you will be able to see pictures from last year's celebration at different airports (there's FRA and JFK too!) and the ceremony at Sendai. Not sure if they will include international airport this year.

I will be connecting at Narita on July 3. Hopefully I will be able to see one of the bamboo trees and write down my wishes (yes there are more than one :P) But so far it looks like they are only doing this at the domestic airports so they might not have one of these set up in the International departure area at Narita :(

Source: JAL Tanabata 2009 website (Japanese only)