Today is Setsubun (節分), the day before spring in the old calendar in Japan.
February 02, 2025
As always, we followed the tradition of eating Ehomaki sushi. One eats the roll without talking, while facing the year’s lucky direction.
We had pre-ordered our rolls at a local restaurant / cafe - they make them freshly by hand in the morning, and they taste fabulous. The left roll is a bulgogi roll, and the right one is a vegetable roll.
Upon pickup, the shop owner even threw in a free serving of handmade kimchi. Nice!
The lucky direction for 2025, which one should face while quietly eating the ehomaki, is west-south-west (written here in Japanese, sei-nan-sei).
Screencap from the Instagram page of our local restaurant / cafe. We can see a photo of a cut Bulgogi Ehomaki roll, and a note saying that the owner started to work on making the pre-ordered rolls at 4 AM in the morning.
Unedited photos shot with iPhone 15 Pro (frames 1 and 2).