On the morning of August 6, the arcades of central Sendai are transformed overnight. Enormous streamers of washi paper and bamboo — each taking months and hundreds of thousands of yen to make — fill the covered shopping streets from end to end. The tradition reaches back to the time of Date Masamune, and resumed in the ruins of the city the year after the war ended. More than two million visitors each year. The largest Tanabata festival in Japan.