Setsubun

Well its the bean throwing ceremony today! Horray for throwing beans. On this day eveywhere in Japan, so my embarassed students admit, you throw beans out your window and shout "oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi" (demons out, good fortune in). And later you're supposed to eat a number of beans corresponding to your age. It was funny to here the slogan/chant/wish? being played on a loop over the speakers in the local supermarket. Its a nice change from the constant "Irashaimase!" I was hoping to look out my balcony and take a picture of hunderes of apartment windows tossing beans out and to hear the slogan. But, alas not a peep. I can't even see any on the ground. So maybe it's just a kids thing. Another student said on the next day you can see lots of birds eating them up but I doubt it. During my spare time I've been browsing through flickr.com and its depressing looking at people's class photos. Just typing in Kobe as a keyword and viewing the resulting slideshow displayed loads of better photos showcasing the essence and atmosphere of Japan much better than my crap..feck that. I know its only a novelty, but its easy to just type in random keywords watch slideshows of the results. I just have to try and think up of more weird keywords.