New Year's

明けましておめでとうございます！Happy New Year! So here, while Christmas is not a big thing, New Year's is. And that makes sense, they've been celebrating new Year's much longer, Christmas is a relatively new import.

Also, while in America we do most celebrating the night of the 31st, here the 1st itself is the most important day (again I think that makes sense). On the 31st, we spent most of the day cooking, preparing for the next day's osechi, traditional New Year's food. These are like large bentos, big boxes filled with many different dishes. I think we had 14 different foods in ours. This went smoothly, except when my little sister and I were supposed to prepare the shrimp, but when she poked the package they started thrashing around. We left that one for my host mom. For dinner, we ate soba, which is traditional, and watched TV. There was a long end of the year program with all the best artists and actors of the year, which almost everyone watches.

Then at about 11:40, we went over to the temple and shrines near our house. There were a lot of people, and I think it's actually a well known temple that people travel to and we just happen to live near. At each shrine and temple, we waited in line to make our offerings, giving a small amount of money then ringing some sort of bell or gong. At a couple of the shrines, afterward they gave us free food or drink. At the first one, there was a thick sweet rice drink that I think usually is alcoholic but wasn't this year, and it was really good. At another one, there were actually low tables set up and we were served the sweet red bean soup with mochi and green tea. At the main temple, there were many good luck things and special offerings to buy. It was sad though, while waiting in one of the lines I asked, "What time is it?" "12:04." So I completely missed the countdown! :( So I guess that's not very important here.

On New Year's itself, at lunch we opened the bentos together. We all had our names written on our chopstick sleeves. We also had sashimi and soup with mochi. We kept refilling the bentos as we went, so everyone ate a lot. It's well known that everyone becomes fatter at New Year's, just sitting under the kotatsu eating. When we were finally done, some relatives came but it was really awkward so Mayuko and I took the train to a different big temple. It was soo crowded but everyone is patient here and doesn't push and shove so it's not bad, just takes a long time to move. Because it was so crowded, there were mats in front of the shrines so people could just throw their money when they got close. There were more luck things to buy, and I got my fortune for the year, but apparently it was a bad one =/ Nearby there were many stalls with food and games, and even though we had just had the osechi, it smelled soo good so we had to get some. So when we got home I took a run, and there were definitely more people than usual out running, I guess staving off the New Year's fat like me or fulfilling newly made resolutions. At dinner, we brought out the bentos again, and ate more. Then we played Wii sports, telling ourselves that moving our one arm is definitely a workout.

On the second, we went over to different relatives' house. It was very relative-y. I realized it was only the second Japanese house I've been in, and I think my house is on the more traditional side, with lots of tatami mats and sliding doors. I move in an hour though, so I'll see what the new place is like! Eek. My life is once again packed into two large suitcases. My sisters made a slideshow of my time with them, and it was really sweet. They have been an awesome family and I feel really comfortable here. But I will see them again soon, since we still have our odori performance, and we're trying to plan a trip to Tokyo. It will probably be a good thing to shake things up a bit. Wish me luck!