Valley of the Dolls

This weekend was spent in the quaint town of Katsuyama, where my friend Chris lives. The event on Tap was the O Hina Matsuri, or Girls Festival, which is basically a large display of large sets of ornate dolls. The dolls are put on display around March 3rd for any little girls a family might have to promote their happiness. The displays are then swiftly taken down because as supersition has it, if the dolls are left “on the shelf” too long it means the girl will be late getting married. Families are very concerned about their girls getting married swiftly, at 25, I am nearing “Christmas Cake” status, meaning on December 24th everyone in Japan buys a Christmas Cake, and those not bought and left over on the 25th are old and unwanted, so same is supposed to go for woman. I like to think I do not need consumer validation to know I am a quality, tasty looking cake, made with love and fresh ingredients, and that I can live a full cake life both on or off the shelf.

Luckily, this intense girlishness was balanced out by something not so girlish; monkeys. Chris befriended a delightfully sweet Japanese woman named Nao, who drove us up to a nearby waterfall. The highlight of the waterfall was wild monkeys live there! I’ve been dying to see some monkeys since I got here. And I got an eyeful, about 50 some monkeys were frolicking about, and they were so used to the tourists you could get really close to them, there were baby monkeys, and even baby monkey making!