Konbonwa...Good Evening
Well another day is almost past here in Japan and you all in the USA are just waking to it and will soon begin to celebrate Martin Luther King Day amongst many other festivities leading up to the BIG HISTORICAL Inaguration of America's First Africa American President Barrack Obama tomorrow on Jan 20th. Yahoo !
What exciting times for the USA and the world. I have been watching Larry King Live here this past week and some CNN and BBC news too, so I am keeping a little bit informed of the goings on. I will have to have CJ bring home a newspaper as well, so we can read more about all that is taking place back home.
Here in Japan the Chinese across the canal are gearing up for Chinese New Year starting Jan 26th of this week. It is a 15 day celebration and so CJ and I have been reading about it on the website to figure out what all the traditions are and also so we hopefully won't miss any of the big parades and events. We hope to make the lion parade on the 26 and then on Feb 9th the final lantern dragon parade. We walked through some of the streets which are all decorated with red paper lanterns on Sunday night and saw too they have hung red and white colored lights and some mini red lanterns and gold ornaments in the central park tree.
A few stores had 2009 calendars for sale, posters and one man had a New Years Decoration stand where he was selling gold foil couplets, and circular red paper cut window decals too. We bought two small ones that I think might look nice framed and hanging on a wall after the celebration. One has 2 Chinese lanterns and the other 2 coi fish. They are very intricate and lacy looking...very pretty I think.
We found another massage place for me to try out when I get around to that and we had fun trying to talk in English to the 3 little Chinese ladies about making reservations and what hours they are open.
As we walked further along, we then found what looked to be like the New Years Info center and went inside to take some pics of the lion and dragon heads which I am assuming might be used in the parade later this week. On each side of the door as we entered were fake trees with pink cherry blossoms and they looked so pretty. Many families were in there and taking pics of their kids in front of the very colorful display of mini orange trees, red, yellow, white and orange lions heads. They even had a few yoou could put on youor head and be a lion yourself, so of course I had to do that.
It was a very colorful room and had all kinds of fish kites and large versions of the numerous amulets, firecrackers, red peppers... hanging from the ceiling. Waist high bamboo plants decorated with littel amulets. As we left and passed by the cherry trees on the way out it made me excited for late March when all the cherry trees will be blooming. Already a few trees are starting to blossom around the neighborhood but I think they are plum trees. Pretty little yellow fragrant flowers I saw today and another tree with some dark orange blossoms too. It seems so odd for them to be talking of spring when it is the middle of January. It was nice though to only need my fleece hooded jacket when out grocery shopping late this afternoon. Sure beats the -17+ degree craziness you all in MN are having. Burrr..
CJ and I too, are really enjoying orange and fresh strawberry season right now. Seems every two or three days I have to go back and replenish the fruit and veggie drawer with ripe strawberries, crispy Fuji apples, juicy mandarin oranges, butternut squash, chinese cabbage, bok choy, sweet potatoes, cukes, carrots, green peppers, onions.... YUM it is all so fresh and good. Seems odd too, to still be buying it all at the open air stands. I keep wondering if one day I will go there and they will be closed because of the time of year and cold weather, but I am guessing now it will probably stay open year around which is awesome. I guess we might see a little bit of snow in February but that supposedly is all? I do love the mandarin oranges as they are so easy to peel and sweet. Too easy to open maybe, as I seem to go through very many sometimes 2-3 maybe even 4 a day. I guess it's better than eating candy or cookies or pastries...right ? :-)
So now I am thinking I will probably make my way down through Chinatown everyday for my daily walk next week, just to see what might be happening. Each day they seem to celebrate something else according to the handout she gave us. We can at least tell the dayes and times, but the explanation in kangi characters is way beyond me. I am still not even getting into Japanese.
Supposedly you are to wear red to ward off evil and avoid white and black as those are colors of mourning. Red also stands for happiness and gold for wealth and lots of decorations are in those 2 colors as well.This is the year of the Ox or Cow and I did see a few cow ornaments hanging on the mini trees in front of the temple. To my surprise there were many more around for the Japanese or world New Year on January
1st. Who knows, maybe more stuff will be out later this week as the big day gets closer.
Well I had best wrap this up so I can hit the hay and get up for another day here tomorrow. CJ brought home a big bag of mail today, that Bob sent over, with lots of cards from the kids in Honduras. Now I need to fold them and put them in envelopes to be sent out to their sponsors back in the states.
Take care, keep happy and enjoy the DC extravaganza
Here's to CHANGE and all that is coming...hope it leaves us all in a more positive light?
Karla and CJ
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment