Setsubun 節分

While most of my friends were celebrating Chinese New Year (Lunar New Year), getting fat eating New year’s feast and snacks with all their might, I was here with my boys were having peaceful days…wondering when can we too getting fat with mom’s cooking, lousang, kuih kapek, etc!!

Anyways, in Japan, we had Setsubun 節分 on the 3rd Feb, literally means a  seasonal division, which also means winter is ending and spring is coming!!
People here usually celebrate this day by performing “mamemaki” 豆まき, throwing beans to cleanse away all the evil spirits (bad luck or so) from the former year, inviting good lucks to the coming year!

It’s like a new start! A festival that was thought of as a sort of New Year’s Eve previously in the Lunar calendar.

The familiar characters during this festival.
Left: 福の神 Fuku, the God that brings luck
Right: 鬼 Oni, the Devil that brings bad luck.

And so, everywhere was playing their role on throwing beans! 
.
.
.

In the kindergarten, they made an ‘Oni’ mask, and did the ‘beans throwing’!

At home, we made a beans box from a milk pack..

Tadah~!
The Oni box!
We put in some paper-made beans..

And GO~ GO~ AWAY~ evil spirits~! Evil spirits and bad luck far far away you go~!
GOOD GOOD LUCK please cooooome to us~!
(Singing the Setsubun song  while throwing the beans at the house)

The video for this 
 The song for Setsubun 節分の歌 

.
.
.

Then, we joined a nearby temple for the beans throwing event~

Surprisingly, met some friends there! 

All the kids coming here to aim for the snacks throwing event after the beans 

Imitating the Oni 

Ehem, you see, there was no chance at all for a small kid to be able to catch any goodies from this crowd..

Luckily the mommy carrying Little-big-boss Kta is tall enough to get him some 
.
.
.
In that night,

I made Ehou Maki, lucky sushi roll for our Setsubun dinner 
.
.
.
.
.
For Littie-big-boss Uto kindergarten lunchbox,

The Oni bento 

The Oni and Fuku bento 

Happy Spring everyone~
(Though it is still so cold outside..)