Today it's Hina-Matsuri(雛祭り）！

 Hina-Matsuri is the Festival of Dolls  or Girls' Festival which is observed on the 3rd of  March.

 Hina means a doll displayed on the Festival day and matsuri is ｆestival in the Japanese language.The dolls dressed in beautiful Heian era costumes  represent the Emperor,Empress, and their court  and are displayed to celebrate the growth of the family's girls and also to express the parents' hope that their daughters  will become as graceful and beautiful as the Heian nobility.

Yesterday ,my friend and I went to the exhibition of the old dolls for the Girls Festival in Tokyo,

but we were not allowed to take photos inside the hall .

We saw many of the beautiful  dolls , some of them were made around 300 years ago!

Though the color of their kimono had already faded away , the atmosphere was very  gorgeous as we were impressed.

My parents bought the dolls with stairs when my daughter was born 30 years ago, which is one of our traditions.When she was a little girl , she wanted to go up  the stairs to play with the dolls.

.I used to prepare special meals , colourful  mixed sushi with lots of  ingredients and clear soup with clams to celebrate the Hina-Matsuri

Normally we display the dolls only  for one month in a year  as there is a saying that if we display     them over the season, our  daughter might not get married.

Fortunately she has a very good British husband and  lives happily in London now , so all the dolls and their tools were put in a closet in our house.




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The entrance of the exhibition at  Gagyo-En in Meguro,Tokyo.

I took these pictures when we traveled in Shizuoka Prefecture  last March with

our daughter's family.

The hanging dolls are very popular  in Izu-region, Shizuoka .

                      After the exhibition, we went to the Japanese restaurant nearby and  ordered Hina-Matsuri set (1380yen) . At home I don't use raw fish for this sushi because  if we have leftovers, I steam it next day.