My Easter Holidays in Japan

My Easter Holidays 2010 were the 3rd that I've spent outside Poland.
Each of those 3 times I was missing the part of my family that was not with me but on the other hand it was also great experience to try and discover new things.

This year, I've spent Easter Sunday with Daniel at hanami, which is a Japanese kind of spring picnic and it's main aim is to admire the Sakura - Cherry Blossom. At the time of Sakura, Japanese people gather in the parks, bring loads of food and drinks, blankets, music instruments, cameras and enjoy their hanamis.

Probably, the most spectacular and enjoyable parts of Easter Holidays in Poland are egg painting and Easter bunny's presents. And that's a part of things that appeared on that day.
Accidentally, just before going to the Meijo Kohen park in Nagoya, we got toys from gashapon machines - vending machines distributing toys in plastic balls, capsules. As soon as we got them we thought that it's a funny Easter coincidence that they resemble eggs.

We waited with opening them until getting to the park. It turned out that Daniel's capsule was hiding stickers with different kinds of beetles (not the Beatles!), while my toy was a kind of keyring, which after pushing the button sounds more less like "Ai shiteruyo baby" (jap. "I love you baby").
In the park, we did egg painting. Actually Daniel did most of the job but my cherry blossom egg pattern also wasn't bad. I should mention here, that originally the eggs that I bought were called Onsen Eggs and we didn't realize what does it mean. After making a small research I discovered that there is a special recipe for Onsen Tamago - Hot Spring Egg.

During our Easter Hanami we've tried some new food.
The most interesting looking one, was a roll with some green tea dough on the top of it. It was rather sweet and tasted great with chocolate bunny.

Another thing was Strawberry Pocky. To describe it I should use a comparison with something that exists in Poland and usually goes with a beer as a snack - słone paluszki (pol. salt fingers/sticks). Both of them, Polish salty and Japanese sweet version, are sticks made of crunchy dough. Japanese ones, are covered with different flavours such as: chocolate, banana, strawberry and many more. Yummmyyy!!!
By the way, did you notice unbelievable Japanese packaging??? The box contains 12 sticks and each 3 of them are wrapped separately!

Last but not least, Takoyaki - the dish which was worth waiting in a queue for a while. As you may see, or not, it is baked and round shaped, served few pieces in a little wooden boat. Each of those round pieces contains butter, dough, vegetables, mayonnaise and a piece of octopus. The most funny part of it are the flakes called aonori, which cover the dish from the top. You may believe or not but, as long as the dish is warm, the flakes are moving. It gives an impression as if your dish was alive!

If you'd like to find out how do the Easter celebrations in Japan look like, check out Daniel San's last year post about his visit in Japanese and Korean churches.