Hinamatsuri

Hello my dear readers! ^^

Hope you're all doing well? I'm on the go to Tokyo and still in my Pyjamas, so I should hurry up a bit now XD But I wanted to put another post on before I'll chase after my train, since my Internet connection is a bit picky at the Moment and I'm only able to post and stalk on Blogspot in the morning so...let's do this! XD

Last weekend I went to Makabe with my friend Natsumi! She is learning German and we have some kind of language exchange - thingy going on, so we meet every once in a while :3
Makabe is a small city nearby Tsukuba and it belongs to Ibaraki-ken (Prefecture of Ibaraki).
It's famous for their pretty Hinamatsuri, which is a festival for the girls in Japan.
The main part of the festival is that every family with a daughter displays a group of traditional dolls in their windows / in front of their houses. The dolls are supposed to lock bad spirits into their bodys and keep them away from the family.
There is also a legend which says that girls which forget to put the dolls away before the 4th march will not be marryed to anyone.
In Makabe the dolls are displayed for a longer period though and on weekends the city seems like a big fair.

It was so much fun to go there! The dolls where so pretty and there where food stalls everywhere, selling traditional food and delicous sweets!
Moreover some plum trees already started blooming! So beautiful! In addition Makabe is a very cute town with old buildings and a very traditional atmosphere. Definetly worth a visit!

Moreover there was a big puppet-show which was very impressive! The dolls where quite scary though XD' If I had to sleep in one room with one of those I wouldn't even be able to start counting sheeps I guess XD''

I hope you have a nice week! Got to catch my train to Tokyo now! ^^
See you <3>