Monday, June 22, 2009

かにの日(kani no hi): Day of crab

They say June 22 is kani no hi(かにの日), Day of crab. Though I love crab very much, I did not know about it until today. This day was established in 1999 by the famous crab restaurant Kani doraku(かに道楽: literally crab indulgence) in Osaka.
Why? There are two reasons. One is that June 22 is the first day of Cancer of the horoscope. Horoscope caner is kani za(かに座) in Japanese. Kani is crab or cancer, za is seat or sign. What is your horoscope sign? Mine is oushi za(おうし座), Taurus.
The other reason is very interesting. In Japanese there are 46 phonetic alphabets. Ka (か) is the 6th and ni (に) is the 22nd character in the chart. Therefore 6.22 is day of ka ni, that is Day of crab.
I love crab restaurants in Japan very much. I hope you will have a chance to taste the crab dishes here in Japan someday.

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