Nestled high away in the mountains of northern Japan, Sendai is the largest city in the Tohoku region. It calls as the ‘City of Trees’ due to its abundance of greenery and beautiful nature around. Since Sendai city has many international universities relative to its population, it calls as the ‘City of Academics’ too. It is a lively and vibrant city with many great attractions and grand festivals for visitors.
Sendai city hosts some of Japan’s greatest festivals throughout the year. These vibrant festivals are always accompanied by food, fun, music, and games. Since there are year-round grand festivals in Sendai city, you can plan your Sendai trip accordingly. We could visit most of these marvelous festivals during our five-year stay in the city. Here we are going to share the details of the lovely festivals we visited in Sendai. We have captured lots of marvelous pictures of these grand festivals in our lens to show you.
1. Sendai Tanabata Festival
The Sendai Tanabata Festival holds annually for three days from August 6 to 8 each year. This is one of the major summer festivals of Sendai city. This beautiful traditional festival characterizes by colorful bamboo and paper decorations. These elegant paper ornaments call as Tanabata. It can consider the world’s most elegant festival of paper and bamboo. These beautiful decorations are unique to the Sendai city and you may not see them elsewhere in the world.
During the festival, the entire city including central Sendai and neighboring shopping districts filled with colorful Tanabata decorations. Thousands of colorful paper ornaments brighten up the shopping arcades giving a delightful feeling to the visitors.
The best way to enjoy this festival is a leisurely stroll from Sendai station along the shopping arcades. The brightly colored paper lanterns are waving overhead giving wonderful scenery. You can enjoy spectacular decorations all around Sendai city and in shopping arcades as far as your eyes can see.
Sendai Tanabata festival is an ancient traditional event that continued for centuries, from the days of Date Masamune. This festival is world-famous now and it says around two million visitors come from all over Japan and abroad to see this unique festival. If you are visiting Sendai in August, this is one of the grand festivals you shouldn’t miss.
2. Sendai Fireworks
Just before the start of Tanabata festival, the night of August 5 is a special day in Sendai. That day is the Sendai fireworks day, call as Hanabi in Japanese. Approximately 16,000 fireworks set off from the shores of the Hirose River illuminating the sky of Sendai city. This splendid fireworks display is the most awaited festival in the city. It is a popular festival with both local residents, as well as international student communities alike.
.The best place to watch fireworks is either Nishi Park or the Hirose River embankments. These areas fill with lots of spectators since afternoon, to see this marvelous spectacle. You’ll meet many foreigners who participate in it wearing a Yukata, a cotton dress similar to the Japanese traditional Kimono dress. The firework festival lasts around one hour from 7.00 pm. This hour-long wonderful firework display thoroughly entertains all the visitors giving a thrilling and exciting feeling.
We enjoyed the Sendai fireworks during our stay in the city. We used to set off a few hours before it starts, to look for a good place with a better view to enjoy fireworks. Nishi Park was our favorite place to watch the fireworks. We bought some snacks and drinks to enjoy during the fireworks. It was one of the most exciting grand festivals we visited in Sendai and the colorful images of fireworks still give us an eternal sweet memory.
3. Sendai Light Pageant
Sendai light pageant is the most beautiful winter illumination in Sendai city. The light-up venue is Jozenji Dori, the major street right in the center of Sendai city. The huge zelkova trees that line this street illuminates with thousands of brilliant lights. This colorful spectacle of light is one of the grand festivals not to miss in Sendai.
The venue of the light pageant locates quite closer to Sendai station. it is easy to walk this distance enjoying the lovely illuminations along the road. You can enjoy delicious Japanese snacks while walking along the illuminated arcades. It says that more than 6 million lights used for the decorations. It looks like a tunnel of illumination and visitors can enjoy a romantic stroll through this amazingly beautiful tunnel.
The magical Pageant of Starlight gives an exciting experience to the visitors. Not only Jozenji Street but also nearby Kotodai Park also illuminated with lights. There are different shapes and patterns made by lights, such as trains, peacocks in Kotodai Park. There are various special events, including music performances and special winking of the lights to give more pleasure to the visitors.
The pageant starts mid-December and lasts for a few weeks, where you can find exact dates on the official website. The light-up is on daily from 5:30 pm until 10 pm. This bright illumination event is one of the major festivals in Sendai, which helps to forget the long cold winter in the city. If you are planning a winter trip to Sendai, don’t miss this fantastic pageant of light during your visit.
4. Aoba Festival
Aoba Festival is a spectacular event that represents the arrival of spring in Sendai city. This proud traditional festival has a nearly 400 years long historical background. Groups of Sendai citizens dance some traditional dances in this procession.
The major highlight of the Sendai Aoba Festival is Sendai Suzume Odori (sparrow dance). People energetically dance with fans in both hands, imitating sparrows picking food. Suzume Odori considers a beautiful dance unique to Sendai city.
The procession of the Aoba festival consists of gorgeous ornamental floats, drummers, musicians, dancers, and samurai who wear armors. They parade through the streets making a marvelous event, filled with music, rhythm, and dancing.
We enjoyed a lot watching the Aoba festival and the Sendai sparrow dance. Even small kids danced along with their parents. It was one of the most wonderful grand festivals we visited in Sendai.
5. Sendai Jazz Festival
Every year in September, the streets of Sendai become one large outdoor music festival. This is a two-day long volunteer-run music festival, which makes the city enveloped in incredible music of professionals. Not just limited to jazz, there are performances of all genres, from both professionals and newbies alike.
Sendai Jazz festival is one of the must-visit festivals for music lovers. It draws talents from across Japan and also from abroad too. Spending these two days in amazing jazz music is truly a blessing to experience in Sendai.
6. Sakura Festival
Enjoying the cherry blossom is the most enjoyable spring festival in Sendai. It holds in mid-April every year, with the start of blossoming Sakura. The parties under the lovely Sakura trees call as Hanami in Japanese. People gather to enjoy cherry blossoms by having a picnic under the Sakura blooms. At these parties, friends and families are getting together and enjoying plenty of food and drink over a leisurely chat.
These parties give the opportunity to relax all day with the lovely cherry blossom. After a long heavily cold winter, the scenery of beautiful cherry blossoms is the most awaited time in the year. This is the best time of the year with nice weather, blue skies, and warm sunshine. People enjoy Sakura festivals under the pleasant weather with food, snacks, and drinks.
Sakura festivals hold in many places in Sendai. Out of them. Shiroishi Riverbank in Ogawara is a world-famous spot for cherry blossom viewing. Other popular places include Nishi Park. Katahira campus, Tsujigaoka Park, and Sendai Castle. These places are always filled with food stalls with delicious food. Everybody has fun-filled, incredible days in Sakura season. Even at the night, you can enjoy fantastic cherry blossoms under the illuminations.
7. Tulip Festival
Sendai Tulip Festival is an annual spring festival held in Michinoku Park in early May. Michinoku Park is a beautifully landscaped public park spread over a vast area of 650 hectares. It becomes a heavenly paradise filled with thousands of Tulips, during this festival. Since this time is the golden week holiday in Japan, lots of visitors flock to this park to enjoy the Tulip Festival.
This park offers many things to entertain the visitors. Lots of colorful Tulips, wildflower meadows, and a lake with swan paddles are a few of them. There are several events where visitors can participate while enjoying the lovely scenery of Tulip blooms. As well as, it offers lots of opportunities to entertain kids, with play areas, train rides, jumping balls, and many more. Even there is a place to walk along with the pets and many visitors come there with the pet dogs to have a fun time.
The tulip festival in Michinoku Park is the most beautiful festival we have ever visited in Sendai city. There were thousands of different colored Tulips in elegantly arranged lovely flower beds. Hundreds of Sakura trees in the park were close to the end of the blossoming season. Lots of rain of Sakura petals in the high winds could be seen while walking in the park. If you are going to visit Sendai in spring, enjoying the gorgeous Tulip festival is one of the main things not to miss in the city.
8. Rose Festival
Sendai Rose Festival is one of the loveliest festivals in Sendai city. It is an annual event hold from the end of May to the beginning of June each year. The venue is Sendai Agricultural Gardening Center in Wakabayashi-Ku. This festival display fully bloomed thousands of roses belong 200 species, in an elegantly landscaped garden.
This grand spectacle of Rose blooms easily steals visitors’ hearts. The colorful Roses sway in the wind, making the air fragrant with their sweet smell. Besides, there were hundreds of different varieties of roses, we had never seen before.
Remember to be ready with your camera, since there are many opportunities to capture the wonderful beauty of different types of Roses. This grand festival opens up from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm for nearly two weeks.
There is a Rose fair at this festival, where a large number of rose-related products and plants are gathered. We enjoyed the sight of bonsai trees filled with flowers on display. You can buy seedlings of various types of roses, as well as many other plants from this sale. Certainly, this festival offers a great opportunity to enjoy the magnificent scenery of the beautiful Rose collection.
To sum up, we have bought the details of the grand festivals we visited in Sendai during our stay in the city. Sendai is indeed a fascinating place with many attractions and festivals worthy to visit. Hope everybody will visit this beautiful city and enjoy these grand festivals someday.
