Valentine's Day

February 14

Happy Valentine's Day!

It's been a busy week or 2. Last Friday was Harikuyou, a memorial for needles. We should stick our sewing needles into a block of tofu or konnyaku to give them a rest from all that hard sewing for a day, and give a prayer of thanks for their efforts and also pray for our sewing skills to improve. Since few people still sew, it's probably not a huge occasion, but I wouldn't be surprised if some fashion designers here followed the tradition. Some shrines like Egara Tenjin in Kamakura hold thanksgiving services for needles.

The Harikuyou service at Egara Tenjin... a giant block of tofu acts as a pin cushion.

Monday was a national holiday (National Foundation Day) and today is Valentine's Day, so this is a great week for the average salaryman: a day off, and hopefully, a lot of chocolate. Not so much fun for the average housewife though: an extra day of cooking 3 meals and making 'honmei choco'.

The macaron craze continues - Muji has make-your-own macaron kits for 'honmei choco'

Got these beautiful silicon chocolate moulds at Muji, to make 'wagashi' shaped chocs and cookies.

My own efforts weren't so photo ready. White chocolate is NOT chocolate!
They're only as good as the chocolate you use.

Every year though, it seems fewer women are buying 'giri choco' - those chocolates one feels socially obligated to buy for male co-workers and sempai - and more are buying 'tomo choco', chocolates for their female friends. This year's commercials for Meiji chocolate shows a typical high school girl making chocolates for her friends at school, intercut with her and her friends laughing and hanging out. Boys don't get a look-in. Even Arashi's Matsujun, who is magically 'supervising' her cooking, misses out on the chocolates.

Here's Matsujun looking more like someone's grandpa for Meiji

And he finds out the high school girl didn't make him any chocolates.

As a result, the packaging is getting girlier every year. I still saw sake flavour and even Tabasco flavour chocolates, aimed at men, and a lot of novelty packaging (chocolates wrapped to look like dried abalone, dried sardines, etc was popular with the high school boys I saw at Loft).

In case you forgot the date, Plaza stores will wrap your gift in bold arrows.

Some of my hubby's haul (the Ghana will be made into Gundam-shaped chocolates today). I really hope the 'dried fish' ones don't taste like fish!

Chocolate Nano blocks to build a 'beer' nanoblock. "Love for Boy"' sounds a bit too much like "boy love" , but anyway...

Popular stores like Loft, Tokyu Hands and Plaza also give out free instructional magazines full of recipes and decorating ideas.

I'm not sure what message this breath mint cocktail sends to the man in your life, but there are a lot of old dudes on the rush hour trains who could do with a few strong mints.

This shopping bag will proclaim your feelings to the world.

Setsubun

February

Spring is coming! It doesn't feel like it today (and it snowed again yesterday) but last weekend, the weather teased us with a few balmy sunny days, up to 17 degrees. Sunday 3rd was setsubun, marking the transition to spring or risshun.

The camellia tree on our street, lightly frosted.

Originally, setsubun was celebrated just before New Year – when Japan followed the Chinese calendar. It kind of made sense to chase out the bad luck of last year, so that we can start afresh. 

You can pick up the oni masks for free when you buy the soy beans to throw.

We should throw beans to chase away evil spirits before we start the new year. Think of it as spiritual spring cleaning. I wrote about it here, last year. 

At the station last Saturday, they were having an Akita promotion, complete with guys dressed up as Namahage – the local oni, who traditionally go house to house at New Year to scare naughty children. No one was scared of them this time – kids were happily posing.

Does this kid look scared? Not at all.

Ehomaki

We sat in this year’s direction - SSE to eat a whole sushi roll without stopping or speaking. One of my friends told me that growing up, ehomaki was only a Kansai tradition, and Tokyo people thought it was weird and funny, but now everyone does it. I just bought ehomaki at the convenience store for lunch on Sunday, but when I went to the supermarket later in the afternoon, they had about 6 metres of refrigerator cabinet dedicated to ehomaki, and the crowds were crazy.  For people who don’t eat sushi, a lot of stores are selling roll cakes done up as ehomaki:  a long roll of sponge cake filled with cream and strawberries and wrapped in a chocolate crepe to mimic the nori. Delicious!

We had a roll cake "ehomaki".

Kyoto

Liza Dalby describes the many setsubun traditions celebrated in Kyoto in her book Geisha.

If you live in Kyoto, you can also visit 4 shrines in the 4 directions (this is called Shiho mairi), a tradition that many geisha still follow. Stalls sell shougazake – ginger sake – basically the milky sweet sake, with grated ginger. It's nice and warming at this time of year, but I’d rather drink Stone’s Ginger Wine, or just add ginger to regular sake.

The four shrines are: Yoshida shrine to the East; Kitano tenmangu to the west  which has gorgeous plum blossoms and a famous flea market on the 25^th of each month; Akiba Jinja (to the north) and Mibu temple near the centre of Kyoto (just south of Nijo castle). 

And if you want to see geisha at setsubun, your best bet is Yasaka shrine in Gion, where, if you’re lucky, you might catch a little package of beans and sweets thrown by local maiko. 

Setsubun celebrations at Yasaka shrine, courtesy of kyotoguide.