Go Fish!

The Hina Matsuri, or Girls' Day, happens in March. Boys also get their own special day on the 5th of May, when families hang out carp streamers for every boy they've got in the home. Back where I come from we only got one Children's Day in October for both boys and girls, while here they celebrate twice. How lucky is that?

As the first week of May rolled around, I began to see colourful fish-shaped wind socks going up in the gardens of my neighbours. I also saw kindergarten and elementary school kids carrying their own handmade paper carp streamers (sometimes taller than they were) on their way back home from school, but privacy laws here prevented me from taking photographs of other people's kids. Fun to watch though.

In my town, there's an event called the Yosakoi Festival in celebration of both the cherry blossoms and Children's Day, where massive carp streamers are strung over the Shakado River on the edge of the city amongst the cherry trees. Someone at school urged me to go see them, and I didn't really think much of it until I actually got there. This is why:



I know the streamers don't look that big in the pictures, but in reality I think they were each about 10 metres long at least. Watching them billow in the breeze made me go "ooooh" quite a bit. Too bad the evening I was there quickly turned cold and rainy, so I had to take cover in my car within 10 minutes of getting to the river, but not before I got a box of hanami dango (cherry blossom viewing dumplings) to go from the festival stall on the side.

Tasty stuff, those. sweet soy sauce on one side, and bean paste on the other. The real taste of Japan indeed.

As part of the Yosakoi celebrations, there was supposed to be a public dance performance at the river that weekend, however I missed it because I had to go to Tokyo for the Gyakuten Saiban orchestral concert (which was totally awesome... I'm so getting the DVD). Oh well, I suppose I'll just have to report on it next year, when the weather will hopefully be better.