Oni wa soto, Fuku wa uchi!
EDIT: This entry was written on Friday Feb.4 but I couldn't use the Internet for some reason so I had to wait until I could access the Net again.
So, here's how my week went. On Wednesday, I took my laptop to the Bic Camera store in Shinjuku to get it fixed, had some great Italian food for lunch at Kasuga then headed to my dj friend's house to record some stuff. It's been a long time since I've seen them and it's always fun to talk about music(our conversations are 60% Japanese, 40% English) and sing some melodies to the new track the dj made.
Yesterday was setsubun節分(the day before the beginning of spring)which literally means 'seasonal division'and my mother made some futomaki sushi. Usually, you would cut up the sushi to make it easier to eat but during setsubun, you have to eat it whole, face a certain direction(it changes every year. This year, we were supposed to face west-southwest)and make a wish silently. If you finished eating the sushi without saying a word, your wish is supposed to come true. I heard that this particular custom originated in the Kansai area but in recent years, it became popular nationwide. You can see uncut futomakis sold in every super market on this day.
Another well-known custom is the mamemaki豆まき in which children go outside with some parched beans in their hands and scatter them to drive away the onidemons so that good health and luck will come their way, hence the name fukumame good luck beans. As they throw the beans at the demons, the children cry "fuku wa uchi! oni wa soto!"(let good luck in, drive the demons out!)several times. It's a cute custom and my mother and I scattered some beans in the hallway of our apartment(we were too lazy to go outside and tough it out in the cold. we're such obaachans lol). It was the first time in ten years that I scattered fukumame. It was lots of fun, and it felt like I was a kid again.
Today, my okaasan took the bullet train to Nagoya to get some old kimonos and obis at my grandmother's house. She's only spending a few hours there and it would seem expensive to pay all that money for the train(a couple hundred dollars round trip), but if you think about the price of buying a kimono, it's not all that bad. My aunt who lives a few steps away from her house says that she nor her daughters plan to wear the kimonos and that my mother can go ahead take the ones she wanted as a rememberance of her.
So, I spent the day at home by myself picking up the beans we scattered the night before lol since the guy from Tokyo Coop would come deliver the groceries we'd ordered online. I spent the whole day doing absolutely nothing except making some chicken curry..Lots of it so that basically took care of lunch and dinner. Hey, there might be some leftover for tomorrow's lunch too. In addition to the regular carrots, onions, potatoes, and chicken line-up, I added some green bell peppers, shimeji mushrooms, vegetable juice, 1 and a half tablespoons of plain yogurt,cumin powder, and S&B curry powder to jazz up the instant curry sauce(not the roux that comes in the box but the powder kind which contains no animal fat. I hate the taste of lard) then let the soup simmer for a good 3 hours. It was pretty good if I do say so myself.
After lunch, I got a call from Bic Camera and they told me that it would cost 70,000 yen to fix the monitor of my laptop and that I had over 10,000 yen worth of Bic Camera points so I could use that toward my payment. That was music to my ears considering the fact that the guy told me that it would be around 80,000 to 100,000 yen to repair it which made me consider buying a new computer altogether. I guess the bean ritual on setsubun worked after all. lol
Of course, I would've much rather used the money to travel somewhere after graduation or buy a new obi for my kimono but I'm thankful and relieved it didn't cost any more than it did. At least I'll have enough money for the little get-together w/my friends on the 25th. The main purpose of the get-together is to talk about the party we'll be having after the graduation ceremony. One of my friends and I were talking about it the other day and thought it'd be kind of fun to get dolled up and reserve a private room in one of those cool restaurant/bars in Azabu or somewhere equally nice. Can't wait.
TTFN
So, here's how my week went. On Wednesday, I took my laptop to the Bic Camera store in Shinjuku to get it fixed, had some great Italian food for lunch at Kasuga then headed to my dj friend's house to record some stuff. It's been a long time since I've seen them and it's always fun to talk about music(our conversations are 60% Japanese, 40% English) and sing some melodies to the new track the dj made.
Yesterday was setsubun節分(the day before the beginning of spring)which literally means 'seasonal division'and my mother made some futomaki sushi. Usually, you would cut up the sushi to make it easier to eat but during setsubun, you have to eat it whole, face a certain direction(it changes every year. This year, we were supposed to face west-southwest)and make a wish silently. If you finished eating the sushi without saying a word, your wish is supposed to come true. I heard that this particular custom originated in the Kansai area but in recent years, it became popular nationwide. You can see uncut futomakis sold in every super market on this day.
Another well-known custom is the mamemaki豆まき in which children go outside with some parched beans in their hands and scatter them to drive away the onidemons so that good health and luck will come their way, hence the name fukumame good luck beans. As they throw the beans at the demons, the children cry "fuku wa uchi! oni wa soto!"(let good luck in, drive the demons out!)several times. It's a cute custom and my mother and I scattered some beans in the hallway of our apartment(we were too lazy to go outside and tough it out in the cold. we're such obaachans lol). It was the first time in ten years that I scattered fukumame. It was lots of fun, and it felt like I was a kid again.
Today, my okaasan took the bullet train to Nagoya to get some old kimonos and obis at my grandmother's house. She's only spending a few hours there and it would seem expensive to pay all that money for the train(a couple hundred dollars round trip), but if you think about the price of buying a kimono, it's not all that bad. My aunt who lives a few steps away from her house says that she nor her daughters plan to wear the kimonos and that my mother can go ahead take the ones she wanted as a rememberance of her.
So, I spent the day at home by myself picking up the beans we scattered the night before lol since the guy from Tokyo Coop would come deliver the groceries we'd ordered online. I spent the whole day doing absolutely nothing except making some chicken curry..Lots of it so that basically took care of lunch and dinner. Hey, there might be some leftover for tomorrow's lunch too. In addition to the regular carrots, onions, potatoes, and chicken line-up, I added some green bell peppers, shimeji mushrooms, vegetable juice, 1 and a half tablespoons of plain yogurt,cumin powder, and S&B curry powder to jazz up the instant curry sauce(not the roux that comes in the box but the powder kind which contains no animal fat. I hate the taste of lard) then let the soup simmer for a good 3 hours. It was pretty good if I do say so myself.
After lunch, I got a call from Bic Camera and they told me that it would cost 70,000 yen to fix the monitor of my laptop and that I had over 10,000 yen worth of Bic Camera points so I could use that toward my payment. That was music to my ears considering the fact that the guy told me that it would be around 80,000 to 100,000 yen to repair it which made me consider buying a new computer altogether. I guess the bean ritual on setsubun worked after all. lol
Of course, I would've much rather used the money to travel somewhere after graduation or buy a new obi for my kimono but I'm thankful and relieved it didn't cost any more than it did. At least I'll have enough money for the little get-together w/my friends on the 25th. The main purpose of the get-together is to talk about the party we'll be having after the graduation ceremony. One of my friends and I were talking about it the other day and thought it'd be kind of fun to get dolled up and reserve a private room in one of those cool restaurant/bars in Azabu or somewhere equally nice. Can't wait.
TTFN