This season (March 3rd or April 3rd) in Japan, we have Girl’s Day called Hinamasturi also known as Doll’s Day, or Momo no sekku (a festival of peach blossoms). Hina dolls are believed to protect the young girls of the family from illnesses and misfortunes. Usually, parents or grandparents buy a set of dolls for a new-born baby girl. Centuries before that, people used the doll's for women's health too. So we display the dolls here today for the health and happiness of women of all ages!

The Hinamasturi festive foods are shiro-zake(fermented rice wine), chirashi-zushi(scattered-sushi), hishimochi(three colored diamond-shaped rice cakes), hina-arare(three colored rice crackers), etc. The three colors represent the early spring season – new grass is coming up, peach blossoms start blooming while we still sometimes have snow on the ground. In the dishes we eat today, you may see young green colors on the bottom, snow white in the middle, and pink blossom colors on top, as in hishi-mochi on the doll display.