So… in my last post about our Danish style Christmas dinner in Japan I wrote that the next post would be about new year. However, a lot of things happened and time completely ran away from me. Anyway, today I have time and energy to write so I will try to write more than one post. In any case, first up is Japanese new year and the Christmas holiday!
The Japanese Christmas holiday started for me on the 29th of December and lasted all the way to the 8th of January. For new years we went to Motoki’s parents vacation house (Motoki’s childhood home), but before that we celebrated Motoki’s father’s birthday which turned out to be on the 30th of December. We went out for lunch together in Omiya and celebrated him with presents and a candle in his cake (not one for each year ^^). It was very nice!
The next day we went to Motoki’s parents vacation house, and I had decided to try to make “kransekage” this year to bring a bit of Denmark as well. Although it was not perfectly pretty, it ended up somewhat OK I think (my first time to make it).
Motoki’s mom had prepared a lot of nice food this year as well. Well, a big part of the Japanese new year is about eating (with family^^) and visiting a shrine and pray for the new year.
Tempura (deep fried vegetables and shrimp):
Soba (noodles):
Chashu (pork, right side) and some vegetables etc (left side):
In Japan, one of the important traditions are not only what you eat on new years eve, but also what you eat for breakfast on the next few days. The below picture show some of the typical things you eat for breakfast. Furthermore, it is normal to drink hot sake for breakfast as well as part of this.
Some people visit a shrine shortly after the clock as turned midnight, however in our case the nearest shrine was far away and could not go by car due to the beers ^^. So we went to the local shrine in the morning the next day. It is a small cosy shrine where they give you some sake and sweet potato baked in the fire.
We stayed one more night, and realized that I am allergic to something in the dust from the fireplace. My nose was tickling all the time and I was sneezing so much, but when they changed to using the airconditioner it got much better. However, the fireplace is so nice so it is a bit sad if they cannot use it when I am there. In any case, we had a great time and a few days after me and Motoki went skiiing! I will write about that in a separate post, so this is what you get in this post.
