February 3 is the day of “Setsubun” in Japan, a old tradition where people are throwing soybeans in their house shouting “Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi” which means “Demons are outside, happiness is inside” in order to have a lucky year.
Sometimes japanese dads wear a demon mask and children are throwing beans at them.I found some very cute manju, japanese traditional cakes and I could resist to buy them!
How does they look?
Let’s see after the jump!
Look at the beautiful box with a demon and Okame the goddess of joy.
Inside there’s two manju also shaped as a demon and Okame and some sugar coated beans.
Soy beans are coated with white and pink sugar because white and red is a combinaison for calling the good fortune.
The cakes are so cute, I didn’t want to eat them or cut them…
But I needed pictures to show you.
The demon manju is filled with red bean paste and Okame with white bean paste.
Since it’s coming from an high grade japanese cakes shop called Tourindo in front of Omotesando crossing, it tasted really good.
The set was a little bit expensive (around 850 yens) but everybody was so happy at home that it worthed it.
And I don’t know why but the cat frenetically tried to eat the manju…
More about Setsubun : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setsubun
More about manju : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manj%C5%AB
Site : http://www.tourindou100.jp/
Map:
■■■ Back Number Articles ■■■
Demons appear at the changing of the season?! How people spend Setsubun
Comments