Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Kodomo no hi

Today is Children's Day in Japan. It's really Boys' Day, but they have renamed it Children's Day. The day is very much like Girls'Day with special displays of samurai dolls, special foods, and more recognizable the carp kites or koinobori.
People display the kites high on poles, or other high places, and they represent strength and endurance as the carp can swim upstream even against a waterfall. Mr. Takahashi said there were kites flying all over Japan on that day (they are 15 hour ahead of us). He also sent a picture of the samurai display. My class made koinobori to celebrate the day. We didn't have the special rice cakes wrapped in bamboo or oak leaves. Instead we tried some miso soup and ate more rice. This time everyone got a set of bamboo chopsticks to keep! Thank goodness for the 100 yen store.

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