Children’s Day (Boy’s Festival)

May 5th is Children’s Day in Japan (kodomo no hi). Just to summarize, apparently it is a day to celebrate children’s personalities and their happiness… whatever that means. In a nutshell, families with little boys put up really large poles with carp “kites” (called koinobori) [on May 5th, traditionally known as boy’s day] to represent the boy’s strength and virility. Families with girls put up really nice dolls (hinamatsuri) [on May 3rd, tradtionally known as girl’s day] epresenting the Heian Court from aproximately 1000 years ago.

Now back in Kagawa we had some little tiny koinobori (carp flags… are you paying attention!?) (tiny because we have no where to put them!). After packing up and heading to Tanegashima (Kiko’s island) for the holiday, Kiko’s parents surprised us (noa) with some very big koinobori. And I mean very big… I spent an afternoon standing up a big huge pole right outside of Kiko’s parent’s house. It was definitely a nice way to celebrate. Noa seemed to really enjoy them too… (this coming from the baby who loves plastic shopping bags).

While on Tanegashima Noa gets to spend time with his cousions, Hina, Kana, and Shuichiro and gets to ride an airplane for like the 80th time in his life. Enjoy!

That is all. We are scheduled to be on the island from April 28th to May 7th.