Crumbs to Crunch

Yesterday was Hina Matsuri in Japan, also known as Girl’s Day or Doll’s day in English. The celebration of this festival is a traditional way to pray for the health of a young girl. When a baby girl is born, parents often prepare dolls before her first Hina Matsuri. Then, every year a display is put up in the house. The top of the three-tiered platform has an emperor and empress doll. Surrounding them are court ladies, court musicians and items usually associated with marriage, such as tea ceremony utensils and personal effects that a wife would take to her new home. However, this display must be put away before the 3 rd March, otherwise it is said that the girls will not be able to get married. As in all cases, what really interests me about this festival is the food! I work in a school, and our special school lunch consisted of chirashizushi and hina arare. Chirashizushi consists of sushi rice with vinegar and sugar topped with raw fish and sometimes vegetables. Hina arar...

One of the sadder moments of living abroad is when you realise that Guy Fawkes Night is pretty much an exclusively British event. I'd been complaining about the lack of fireworks when I heard of the Taimatsu Akashi, or the Sukagawa Fire Festival, which takes place a mere week after Bonfire Night. In 1589, the castle of Sukagawa was burnt to the ground by Date Masamune. Now every year the people of Sukagawa commemorate the loss of life by building 7 feet tall pillars and setting them on fire. It's an amazing sight- the fires look incredible and frightening, but the locals seem fairly relaxed about the huge fire they start every year in the town centre. This year, the weather was not kind. It was completely bucketing it down. Although we got completely soaked to the bone (as part of our grim determination to not put up an umbrella and block the view of the people behind us), the Samegawans cheerfully informed us that the rain was a good thing as it causes the fires t...