02/03/2007

So I completely forgot to tell you all about Setsubon, which was a small festival that happened when Katie was here. Its kind of a new years thing, where we partake in a certain ritual to cleanse our house of evil and bring in good luck.

So what we had to do for this festival was in our apartment, someone had to dress up as the devil and the rest of us had to throw soy beans at them (im completely serious) then we had to throw beans of our balcony and shout something in Japanese that means "Evil spirits go away" or something like that....

then we had to eat the same number of soy beans as our age, then we had to eat Makazushi which are long sushi rolls, all in one go while facing north north west in our apartment.

So we all stood in the kitchen facing north north west and ate them... Sarah and Katie had a little trouble finishing theirs and we left them on the floor to finish. Quite a hilarious evening and one of my more favourite festivals in Japan.

Hopefully now our house is cleansed of evil. Note the photos are in my lounge room, a big improvement on my last shoebox!!

1. our devil

2. throwing beans at our devil

3. eating our makazushi facing NNW

4. Katie and Sarah, having trouble...

5. Katie, the last to finish!

We realised we never actually took any birthday photos, so sorry! But you got the email so use your imaginations....

So that's it from me for a while! On the 19th March, my sister and I are heading off on a 3 weeks vacation to India and Thailand so the next few weeks are going to be busy preparing for that, hopefully I'll keep in touch before I head off.

Hope everyone is happy and well!

Love always!
Lesley xxxoooooo