Belgian girl tries not to get lost in Japan, 2k18

Deer and cherry blossoms in Nara park, Japan

Photos inside the Ghibli Museum are not allowed, so I bought this postcard set to help me remember the sights inside. You can see some of my photos from the outside of the museum here.

Le Petit Prince

What’s one (1!) place in Japan you’d recommend me to add to my itinerary? :) (late march/beginning of april, It Matters)

For Hinamatsuri, we found a nagashibina event to attend in Ibaraki.  For the annual ‘Doll Festival’ or ‘Girls Day’ in Japan on March 3rd, traditional dolls are set out on display in Japanese homes and lots of Japanese museums, schools, and other public places.  

Way back in the day, people used to make straw or fabric dolls as vessels to carry any future misfortunes that might befall their children, and they sent them down a river on rafts, to carry the misfortunes away.  Somewhere down the line, the tradition evolved into owning sets of nicely crafted dolls to display and to offer good luck to daughters in the home, and some towns still floated the dolls as a symbolic ceremony, but retrieved them at the end since they were of such high quality.