19th century Japanese Game ; Kai awase A shell-matching game played originally among the upper class Japanese

during the Heian period (794-1185).

The Kai-awase game is similar to a game of cards.However, we did’t use paper cards but shells to play a memory game.

The shells have been painted.The point of this game is to find shells with the same picture inside.The most popular subjects are flowers and episodes from GENJI MONOGATARI 源氏物語 (The Tale of Genji).

mtsarai

AD787 The first Viking attack on Britain.

The shells are placed facing down, and players have to select the matching pair. However, this was particularly difficult because a full set of

traditional kai awase shells contained 360 pairs of shells!

Each calm shell only matches perfectly with the other half. Thus, the shells are considered as a couple to be met for a happy marriage.

Painting shells - You start by painting gold on the inside of the shells and then you can draw simple pictures over the top, in

which a romantic story for each pair would unfold.

You can add a little water and a tiny bit of plastic glue to the colours.

Or just cut two pictures to paste inside of the shells:

Japanese Shells Painting