Hinamatsuri

On the third of March it was Hina matsuri, the doll festival in Japan. Also know as the girls festival. Japanese families with young girls make this big elaborate displays of dolls in traditional costumes in there houses. They are designed to represent an ancient Japanese court with an emperor and an emperor and various courtiers. Our house keeper put this display up in the communal area of the dorm. We also had a little party.

Kawagoe

Last week I went to Kawagoe which was 30 minutes from Ikebukuro, maybe 1 hour from Tokyo station. Its this suburby area of Tokyo which is largely unremarkable except for this one street which has lots of buildings from japan's edo period. There aren't many building from that time still around since they were very supsetible to fire, the ones in Kawagoe only survived because the merchants decided to rebuild using more fire resistant materials after a fire in the early Meiji period.

It was really interesting to stroll down the street and get a picture of everyday live in a different period of Japanese history. There are lots of old temples and things like that around but rarely the kind of buildings that survive in Kawagoe such as shop fronts and warehouses.

This tower is one of the most famous landmarks of Kawagoe.

Kawagoe is also famous for its sweet making industry and I saw lots of places selling Japanese traditional sweets along with western snacks like ice cream. Unfortunately I didn't find the main sweet making street but I did try a few things including a Japanese bean in sweet powder that was very nice.

Kawagoe was really interesting but not very well know. Only one of my three guidebooks even mentioned it. Its a shame that more tourists don't visit it but kind of nice for me as it was nice and peaceful. Great place for an afternoon stroll.

Gakushuin school festival

Around the end of October beginning of November my university Gakushuin had a 3 day school festival. This is apparently normal in both Japanese universities and schools. Most of the clubs and societies of the university had booths or performances ranging from selling some homemade food to a portable planetarium run by the earth sciences club.

We saw this giant dance performance by some kind of hip-hop dance group. It was interesting to watch but dragged on for a bit.

Most of the savory food that was being sold had meat in it so I mostly ate crepes and other sweet things. They were very good though.