An annual Sengan-en's spring event.
Enjoy beautiful dolls for the girls' festival day and traditional spring events here at Sengan-en with full of flowers of Japanese apricot, Taiwan cherries, camellias and azaleas.

The annual exhibition of dolls displayed on the Girl’s Festival Day is held at Shoko Shusei-kan (尚古集成館) at Sengan-en during the period. You will be amazed with about 98 kinds, 550 dolls and materials which were brought by Takehime, the daughter of the 5th Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, when she married Shimazu, the lord of Satsuma.

Nagashi-bina (floating hina dolls down a river) will be held on the March 20 (Tue / national holiday) from 13:00 to 14:00.
Nagashi-bina is an event which is said to be the origin of the Dolls' Festival. This ceremony is still held in various regions as a folk custom which represents the removal of participants' impurities by throwing them into a river, in the same way as harai-hitogata (purification with a paper doll).
Sengan-en holds the events every year. People purify themselves by putting a pair of tiny hina dolls which are placed in a bamboo shaped boat into the river and praying for good health and happiness for the year. Tickets: 3,000 yen, ladies only. Admission fee: free

Kyokusui-no En (providing poems in fromt of stream) will be held on the April 8 (Sun) from 13:00.
“Kyokusui no En” is originally a Chinese traditional event. It was held among nobles about AD 600 ~ 900 in Spring. People sit beside a little stream in which a sake cup is floating. Before the sake cup floats through in front of the person, he / she has to compose a poem. This annual event had started in Japan before the Nara era (about AD 700).
Here in Iso garden, the 21st Shimazu lord made the kyokusui garden about 1736, and copied Chinese “Rantei”.
You can see this traditional graceful event in Iso garden. People dressed like characters in “The Tales of Genji” sit along a little stream and compose poems. You would feel like you have travelled in time to the Heian era. (Ticket: adults 2,000 yen, reservation required. You need to buy entrance ticket as well.)