So recently I made my way back to Katsuura, where part of our third Chiba-kun Ambassadors tour took place, for their hina matsuri, or doll festival! Hina matsuri is actually something that is celebrated all over Japan and is also called Girl's Day (it's on March 3). Apparently the dolls represent the emperor, empress, court musicians, and attendants in Heian-era clothing, and I think it's traditional to buy a set of dolls for girls to display in their houses.
Anyway, I'm not sure how famous the hina matsuri in Katsuura is, but I think it definitely deserves attention, because there are so many dolls everywhere! When we started walking to the main areas, suddenly we noticed little displays of dolls in bamboo pipes all around the streets. I tried to see what they were made of and it looked like some were made of plastic while others were wood and maybe a few of porcelain? I thought it was cool that they weren't all girls/women (which is what I was expecting) - there were a lot of little old men, too.
Our first stop was actually to eat tantan-men (a type of spicy noodle which I think is from China), because Katsuura's tantan-men is actually famous as a "B-grade gourmet" food - food that isn't expensive but is very tasty. And it was! I was very happy with my bowl, which I ordered with menma (bamboo shoots) as a topping.
The rest of the day was spent just wandering around and looking at ask the dolls, which were in almost every store and along the streets, but also in giant displays with probably hundreds of dolls in each one. The biggest one was at a temple w
here dolls filled a whole staircase, which was pretty impressive to look at. Somebody told us that all the dolls have souls and so they take care to put them all away if it rains, which must be a big undertaking.
All in all it was a pretty neat thing to see, so I'm glad that I went! I still didn't make it to the places I missed on the Chiba-kun Ambassadors tour though - maybe next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment