Setsubun

Japanese celebrate Setsubun (or the beginning of Spring) today. They throw soy beans on the floor at the entrance of their homes and shout the Japanese equivalent of "Out with the devil, in with luck!". Then, they eat roasted groundnuts. They eat the same number of groundnuts as their age.

Check out this packet of groundnuts I bought from the supermarket...comes with a devil's mask. (I don't normally find groundnuts in the supermarket so I was really happy to see piles of groundnuts for Setsubun...I love peanuts!) Groundnuts don't taste as good as our Farmer / Hand brand peanuts we get at home but I peel them and pop them into the microwave to roast them and they taste a bit better than eating them raw.

This day officially marks the beginning of spring in the Japanese traditional calendar, but it is actually dead in the middle of winter. The weather forecast said that this weekend will be the coldest this winter! I wanted to go to another town to watch a "Throw beans at the devil" celebration, but there was a massive blizzard so I didn't go. The wind was so strong that it sounded like a train from inside my apartment.