March 3rd is called "雛祭り (Hinamatsuri) in Japan. It's a celebration day for girls, also known as the festival of dolls. When my sister and I was born, my grand parents got this set of dolls, each of which dressed up in an ancient Japanese court costume. Girls used to dress up in a nice Kimono and play with cards, eat some sweets and enjoy themselves. Nowadays, it's just another celebration day, and doesn't seem to be considered as a big deal. In fact, it's getting more and more rare to have a full set of five or seven tires of dolls and display them. ...Anyway, end of a culture lecture...., shall we?
Today, on Hinamatsuri, I got back in Japan, where my parents live, and those dolls are there even though both the girls have already (my sis & I) left home... According to my mum, my dad decided to put them out and he said..."I don't care if the girls are here or not! I'm getting them out nicely anyway!" Yes, he's as stubborn as me, I know... I guess that was the lonely dad's best gesture... well, they are beautiful, dad:)
To show my appreciation to my dad's effort, I made Japanese sweet called "三色だんご (Sanshoku Dango)", meaning rice ball sweets in three colours". It's normally comes in pink, white and green, tasting cherry blossom, plain, yomogi (or mugwort) respectively. However, I didn't have necessary ingredients so I just used food colourings to make them look like it. They may taste not the same as the authentic ones but they look cute and yummy anyway!
