New Years is a big deal in Japan, much more so than Christmas. We tried on a few of the Japanese traditions around New Year.
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The Japanese people wear Kimonos on January 1st. Bear and Josh are sporting theirs. They also offer gifts to their gods,
kadami mochi. |
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| This is our display of our kadami mochi. The Japanese place it all around the home for the Shinto Gods. We were to open the gifts on January 11th. We thought there was mochi inside so the kids were really disappointed when whatever was inside was not at all edible. It may have been that I just could not figure out how to get to the mochi. All the packaging is in Japanese, of course. I bought Chinese Zodiac figures. 2017 is the year of the Rooster. The image of the Rooster is everywhere here. The bamboo display in the center is called kadomatsu. It is usually a lot bigger and placed at the entry way to Japanese homes and buildings. |
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| Door hanging on our front door. The Japanese take all Christmas decorations down on December 28th and put up New Year items like this and the kadomatsu. On the 11th of January, they burn the decorations as offerings to their gods in a shrine. |
So, some of our attempts at celebrating in the Japanese way were more more effective than others but it has been fun to fill our home with some of the cultural pieces.
We tried to celebrate the New Year with a progressive dinner. We love to eat out in Misawa so we thought it would be fun to have an appetizer, main dish, and dessert at three different restaurants. Our problem was that many of the Japanese businesses are closed January 1-3rd in observance of their holiday. Many of the small, family owned restaurants were closed. But we still found good food!
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| Gyoza appetizer |
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| Hamazushi- our favorite conveyor belt sushi restaurant for the main course |
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| Phada's Thai- mango sticky rice and banana splits for dessert |
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