On March 3rd, families who have daughters celebrate The Doll's Festival. At this time, they pray for the girls' growth and happiness. In many houses, they will set up a beautiful display of dolls....many of which they make themselves.
The dolls are meant to take on any suffering, pain or sickness that the daughters might have.
Families will usually start to display the dolls in February and will then take them down immediately after the festival. Superstition says that leaving the dolls up too long afterwards will result in a late marriage for their daughter. So you can almost bet that here in Japan, ALL of the dolls are take down on March 4th...without a doubt. :)
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| Miki's mom and I in front of their doll display :) |
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| The doll display that Miki's mom made :) |
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| My two new friends :) |
March 9th is Japan's annual Spring Festival. And let me just say....this thing was awesome! To sum it up, the Japanese dress up in some pretty funky outfits and parade down the streets singing, chanting, and smashing their sticks together to welcome spring. I'm not gonna lie, it's the rowdiest I've ever seen the Japanese get...but that might be in part due to the fact that I saw one guy slam half a bottle of wine in between chants. :)
I somehow always forget that I am usually the only foreigner at events...or for that matter anywhere (I'm not really sure how that slips my mind) so I'm always surprised when everyone starts paying extra attention to me.
The people in the parade spotted me out in the crowd (I guess not too hard when ur the only white person and ur wearing a bright pink coat) and welcomed me to the festival and their city. They then left the parade and asked if I wanted to take some pictures with them. Sure, why not?!
This Spring Festival was THE COOLEST. :)
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| I call him "Lion Face" |
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