New Year

New Year

If Christmas isn't as big in Japan as it is in the U.S., the reverse is true for the New Year. A lot of people go to visit their families at this time, since there is a break from work and school for the holiday. I went with my host family to Sendai, a more northern area of Japan, to visit my host father's mother and brother who live there and we stayed with them four days. 

On New Year's Eve, we had an amazing traditional Japanese meal with lots of sushi and assorted obento items: shrimp, lobster, snails, Japanese mame or sweet black beans with gold flakes, salmon roe, and roasted chestnuts to name a few. すごいおいしいかった (It was super delicious)! We also had a chance to practice some foreign languages together at dinner since my host dad's brother bought an assortment of foreign beers for everyone to sample. Cheers! Nazdorovie! Kanpai! Prohst!

 

The Japanese make the most beautiful little cakes I have ever seen!

My host mom and grandmother preparing the pot for sukiyaki, which consists of vegetables, thinly sliced beef, and a mixture of soy sauce and sugar, simmered in the pot right on the table. It's a very popular winter meal in Japan and one of my favorites.

After dinner we watched a New Year's special on TV with lots of famous Japanese performers, (and also a special performance by Lady Gaga) and then played games together. I learned a new Japanese card game, called  bouzumekuri which was really fun. Everyone takes turns taking a card from the deck and depending on the character on your card you either have to give up your whole pile or can try to take other people's piles by slapping them before the person notices and slaps their own pile first. In that way I guess its a little like Spoons.

On January 2nd, we we went to a shrine to pray and welcome in the the new year. Of course we weren't the only ones; there were lots of people there!

 At the shrine there are little wooden boxes under a row of big bells. To pray, you throw a coin into the box as an offering, ring the bell by shaking the big ropes, bow twice, clap your hands twice, and then bow once more.

At the shrine lots of people also buy omikuji: little strips of paper that have fortunes on them. If the fortune is good, you keep it with you, but if it is bad, you tie the paper on one of the rows of string so that the fortune stays at the shrine and does not come true.