Rice cake festival Yesterday, I joined a rice cake festival in my neighborhood. I helped to cook 200 people's rice cakes to serve. We had a lot of chores to do. We rinsed and steamed them, and pounded them into cakes by using traditional tools. We did all of it with our hands, not using any machines. So it was a hard and heavy work. However, our neighbors were delighted with those tasty cakes. I have had a heavy muscle pain today though.... Most Japanse have became a member of each resident's associations in their neighborhood. The main reason we join it is to know each other and to help each other in any emergency, such as a big earthquake and fire. But we also have some events to make a friendly relations each other. The previous rice cake festival was one of those events. We Japanese often eat rice cakes on a special day, especially on the New Year. People believe living longer to eat them at the beginning of the New Year. Because they are very chewy and sticky that we can't cut them easily with chopsticks. Have you tried them yet? Be careful not to stick them in your throat!!