2026 Hina Matsuri Festival

 

The Hina Matsuri Festival is known by different names like the Japanese Doll Festival. This specific festival was held at the Simpson United Methodist Church. This was my first time attending this event at this location. The church had clear architectural influences by Asian styles. When you first enter there was a room with some vendors selling goods which then their little market continued into another hallway. Then outside of the room where the dolls were displayed was a whole bunch of different examples of Japanese flower arranging.

Then you turn into the room with all of the different dolls and other Japanese cultural items.

There were many different themes of dolls. They included everything from court dolls, to historic figures, to mythical figures.

There were also other cultural items like the below wig in a traditional style.

What Japanese festival would be complete without an example of Samuri armor.

There was also a few different examples of kimonos. 

The detail in them was very beautiful.

Food

There were a few booths up stairs that had some food/snack options, but the main food was in the basement. So, there was a big problem with this. The church did have an elevator, but there was a sign on it that said use at your own risk due to on going issues with it. This automatically made the food possibly inaccessible to people with mobility issues and could be seen as not being ADA friendly due to them not keeping their elevator open while having events open to the public. This is something that you should keep in mind if you are going, and something that the church needs to fix if they are going to continue to be open to the public...and not close down due to ADA violations.

At the base of the stairs they had a try showing the different offerings. The food was not marked on the try, but they did have a sign on the by where they were serving the food.

The first thing that caught my attention was what they called the Musubi set. They had a few different ones you could pick from. The best tasting one was the edamame one.

The other one looked like they used a seaweed stamp to cut out a design.

I got one 1 of the Hello Kitty ones because I thought they were cute. Little did I know that they were just rice with no filling. I feel like that was a cheat and that they should have had something inside or the rice should have been flavored in some way. It was cute, but super disappointing in the eating. It was also dry and sucked the moisture from your mouth.

These two rice balls for $5 were only worth it if you got 2 of the edamame ones.

In the open area where you could sit and eat they were giving out free green tea. This helped with the dryness of the rice ball. I actually really liked this green tea because it didn't have the bitter taste that green tea normally has. When I asked what brand it was the servers didn't know.

The next thing I tried was the something noodles. The little cup was not on the menu, but they were selling them for $2. The noodles were really good.

They also had the noodles in abura age (tofu pockets) for $7. Each one looked like they held less then the $2 cup, so size to cost I thought these were a little high.

The SPAM musubi was priced about average. The mini ben(to) was priced high compared to how small it was. I can't tell you how it tasted since I didn't buy one due to the low value I saw with it. I would recommend skipping it.

The main event was nice. The food was hit or miss. The main event was small, but nice. They had the dolls on display along with other Japanese cultural items. There was also little booths where you could shop. They even had a tea ceremony that you could watch. I would go to this event again.

If you want to learn more about the Hina Matsuri Festival check out the below sites:

https://www.globetrottinkids.com/hina-matsuri-the-japanese-doll-festival/

https://www.jcchawaii.org/resources/hinamatsuri

https://travel.rakuten.com/contents/usa/en-us/guide/hinamatsuri/