Tanabata

Today's Japan Cool! is about Tanabata. It is called the star festival, and held on the 7th of July. The reason is that two lovers Orihime and Hikoboshi get to meet on that one day. They were introduced long ago by Orihime's father, and fell in love, got married, and promptly stopped working. Everyone was so mad that they were separated by the Milky Way, but her father had mercy and lets them meet once a year.

To celebrate we decorated a branch of bamboo that we got from primary at church. We actually got two, but Edamame thrashed one in half before we left, so we got another. You're supposed to write wishes on the paper for them to come true.

I forgot to take pictures, so we used our photo booth to take some.






Of course with any Japanese festival there has to be food associated with it as well. Somen(thin wheat noodles) is the dish of choice, but in variegated colors, like pink and blue and white. I was looking for something else besides just somen and didn't find anything, but I did find this AWESOME blog post by someone who went all out for Tanabata. Remember it is the star festival, so lots of stars. Even if you can't read Japanese, it is neat to just look at the pictures! We settled for miso soup with clams. Edamame didn't want noodles, and I was grubbing for some clams. I felt bad that 007 wouldn't eat it, but I've discovered that I need to eat what I crave. One of the huge benefits of being pregnant in Japan is that I tend to really dig Japanese food while I'm pregnant, makes it easier being here than anywhere else. I digress, the soup was GREAT, easy, and simple to make. Oh, and Edamame totally dug the clams. He was excited from the time I put them in the cart at the grocery store. We watched them move in the sink while we were soaking them in salt water to clean them out. It was a lot of fun to eat.

Now after a nice 4th of July weekend, have a great Tanabata too!