Happy Meat Day!

Every morning at school, I arrive to find a daily schedule of events on my desk. For the first few months, I just ignored the paper, but recently I have realized that since all the other teachers know what's going on for the day, that maybe I could to, if I just read it. So, the calendar has become my daily Japanese reading practice.

Recently, I realized that on the bottom of the sheet is a list of special events that occurred in history on that day. I am slowly learning to read about famous people's birthdays and deaths as well as major events in world history, and yesterday was one of them! According to the paper (and verified by my teachers) the 29th of each month is Meat Day. Meat (specifically pork) is niku in Japanese and the numbers 2 and 9 are ni and ku, respectively.

Well, I will never forget that when I was really little (maybe six?), my family celebrated Doughnut Day. My dad had heard about it on the radio or something and called my mom to tell her to have us girls decorate the dinner table because we were going to celebrate a very important birthday. Erin and I were so curious as we blew up balloons and folded birthday napkins, and Daddy definitely didn't disappoint. He brought home chocolate-covered doughnuts complete with "Happy Birthday" written on each one. He is sooooo creative, and the memory has remained with me all these years because I thought he was just so amazing!

As I reminisced, I wondered how would Japan celebrate Meat Day? Would we get a steak for lunch?? No, that's to much to ask! Maybe some stir-fried pork? We have had that before... Well, I shouldn't have been surprised when lunch arrived :-) Its Japan after all!