New Beginnings

お久しぶりです！It’s been a while!

It’s been two years since I’ve updated this blog, because as you probably know life can get busy sometimes! Many things have happened over the course of two years, but most of it is just regular life stuff. I think the most important thing I’d like to share is that my husband and I are expecting a baby this spring!

This is our first child and so there’s a lot to do! We’ve talked about having kids and we are on the same page for most things concerning raising children, but of course there are Japanese vs. American cultural differences we’ve had to work through. I am very happy that we are both very flexible, though, and this has made our journey so far much less stressful. We’ll see what happens once the little one actually arrives of course -(｡ﾉᗨ<｡)ﾉ

Getting Ready

We are currently getting ready for the New Year and the new baby all at the same time. We are ending the old year with 大掃除 (o-soji) or the big New Year’s cleaning. We have cleaned out the room that will be the nursery, and now we are deep cleaning everything from the rugs to the drapes, as well as getting rid of anything we don’t need for the baby or our new lifestyle. As per the Japanese custom, we need to finish up the cleaning before the New Year so that all the dust and grime and clutter will be gone and our New Year will be clean and comfortable.

大掃除 New Year’s cleaning

Once the house is cleaned and ready for the New Year, it’s time to relax and enjoy New Year’s cooking which includes traditional good luck foods known as お節料理 (o-sechi ryori), year-crossing soba 年越しそば (toshi-koshi-soba) just before midnight, and red bean mochi soup おしるこ (oshiruko). I can’t eat raw fish served with o-sechi ryori this year, but I can eat most of the red and white foods like kamaboko (fish cake) and oshiruko (red bean and mochi soup), and I can definitely eat the soba!

お節料理 New Year’s o-sechi ryori

We weren’t able to travel to Japan this New Year, so there will be no 初詣 (hatsumode) or first shrine visit of the New Year. However, we can watch the first sunrise 初日の出 (hatsu-hinode) of the New Year from our own home!

New Year Celebration

We spent Christmas with my American family, so we are a bit worn out from the festivities. Japanese New Year is a family-oriented holiday, so now we will enjoy our last New Year as a family of two, relaxing at home. We like to watch the NHK 紅白歌合戦 (Kohaku Uta Gassen) – a televised song competition pitting famous female artists vs. male artists as part of the countdown to the New Year.

This will be our last New Year as a family of two, but I am looking forward to the New Year and what we have in store!

皆さん、あけましておめでとうございます！今年もよろしくお願いします。

Everyone, Happy New Year! I look forward to your support in the New Year!

門松 kadomatsu – New Year’s pine decoration

My New Year

明けましておめでとうございます！今年もよろしくお願いします！

Happy New Year! Wishing you health and happiness in the New Year!

My husband is Japanese, I’m American, and we live in America. So we have an interesting mix of traditions for the winter holidays. We usually spend an American-style Christmas with my family, then spend New Year’s with just the two of us.

We try to incorporate a lot of Japanese traditions into New Year’s, although we can’t do some things, like hatsumode 初詣 or the first shrine visit of the New Year, we can do other things like eat (especially eat) traditional foods, and watch the Japanese New Year’s special Kohaku Song Competition 紅白歌合戦 (thanks to TV Japan).

I wanted to introduce some of the things that my husband and I do for our state-side New Year’s celebrations~

New Year’s Cleaning

Before the New Year comes we have to do a big cleaning called o-souji 大掃除, to clean out the old and dust and get ready for the New Year and good luck. We clean the house thoroughly (mostly) and the cars and yard (dead leaves, etc.). When I visited my husband (before we were married) in Japan for New Years a few years ago, we cleaned his apartment and part of his family’s house in the same way.

Now that I’ve been doing this for a few years, I enjoy the sense of emptying out things I don’t need, cleaning out all the dust, and organizing my life before the year turns. Also, I have an excuse to sit around and be lazy on New Year’s Day!

New Year’s Food

My husband and I both enjoy eating, and although we have yet to make osechi ryori お節料理, or the traditional foods that are eaten for luck and health in the new year, we do enjoy making other New Year’s foods.

On December 31st, we eat toshi-koshi soba 年越しそば or year-crossing soba (buckwheat noodles). The history of toshikoshi soba dates back to the Kamakura period of Japan, where a Buddhist temple gave soba to poor people on New Year’s. During the Edo period, the tradition became a part of mainstream culture. Eating the soba allows you to cut ties with the old year, as the noodles are easily cut with your teeth while eating, and thus gives you a clean start to the new year.

On January 1st we usually make a sweet red bean soup with mochi (glutinous rice) called oshiruko おしるこ. Red and white are lucky colors for the new year, and the red beans and white mochi make oshiruko a lucky dish.

New Year’s TV Special

One thing that I am glad we have access to is Japanese TV, through a service called TV Japan. We get a variety of dramas, news, and special programs here in the states, so we can keep up with a lot of the Japanese programs. Some of the premium dramas don’t come out right away, but most of the NHK dramas come out at the same time as in Japan, so I don’t get behind my friends in Japan.

There are many New Year’s specials, but the first one I saw in Japan (years ago) was the Kohaku Uta Gassen 紅白歌合戦 or the Red & White Song Battle (official title: Red and White Year-end Song Festival). This is aired on December 31st leading up to midnight, and consists of popular Japanese artists competing on the Red team (girls) and White team (guys). It’s a continuous performance, with the popular songs of the year interspersed with commentary by famous actors, announcers, and comedians. Then at the end, everyone votes for the best team (Red or White).

They broadcast it on TV Japan live in Japan time, and then rebroadcast it on American time – so I can watch the whole thing in the morning on December 31st or as a countdown to midnight here in America. I enjoy it because it is a review of the popular songs of the year, and since I can’t go to a New Year’s live (or concert) in Japan, I can have my own in-house concert with all my favorite bands, talented enka singers, and other famous people.

Happy New Year!

The traditional greeting in the New Year is: Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu!

You can shorten it to: Akemashite omedetou! (for friends)

Or for really close friends: Ake ome! (The first two syllables of the first two words in the greeting, but this is much less polite than the longer version).

You can also add: Kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegai shimasu!

This means, “please take care of me this year too,” and is also a standard and polite greeting.

So, Happy New Year, and please take care of me this year too! ^.^ Ake ome everyone!

December Challenge 11 – Breakfast

Ok, let’s be honest. This is what I wish I were having for Breakfast today. A matcha (green tea powder) & adzuki (sweet red bean) pancake with soft-serve ice cream at St-Marc Cafe in Ikebukuro. What I’m really having is less glamorous, because it’s a weekday, and I have to go to work. So while I stuff my face with whatever I can find in my scramble to get out of the house, let’s just enjoy the beauty of this dessert-for breakfast.

Are you hungry yet? I am! I actually did eat this for breakfast in Japan, about 3 years ago when I was on a month-long trip visiting my then-fiance (now husband). Hopefully I will get to try it again on my next trip to Japan!

There really is just so much good food in Japan, and I want to try everything, that some dishes don’t make it into my regular rotation. I haven’t found a bakery or coffee shop that does quite this kind of pancake, but there are several good Chinese or Taiwanese bakeries that have similar creations.

What did you have for breakfast today? Was it closer to this gourmet creation of my fantasies, or a grab-n-go like my actual breakfast? Let me know in the comments!

December Challenge 10 – Bright

For today’s December Challenge theme of Bright, I return to my favorite – Christmas lights or illumination. When it gets dark early and stays dark late, what better way to brighten up the long night than with Christmas lights? Even if it’s cold outside, walking around with your friends or loved ones brings an excitement that makes it worth bundling up.

If you have been following my challenge so far, you’ll know that lights are one of my favorite parts of the season, although I haven’t been able to get out to see as many this year as I would have liked. But the month is still young! So don’t worry, there are most likely more holiday light photos on the way.

What do you think of when you think of Bright? Let me know what my one-track mind might have missed when coming up with a post for this theme!

December Challenge 09 – Snack

For the Snack theme for the December Challenge, I turn to a favorite of mine that isn’t necessarily suited to cold weather, but that I love to eat in the winter anyways. Anmitsu – a Japanese dessert that includes cubes of clear agar jelly, sweet adzuki bean paste, mochi bits, and fruits (like mikan or peach), which is topped by black syrup and sometimes soft-serve ice cream.

This dessert can be eaten any time of the year, but since it is especially cold in the winter I enjoy ice cream more. However, if you accompany the anmitsu with a nice hot green tea, the slightly bitter green tea offsets the sweet and the cold quite nicely. So my choice for a winter snack is anmitsu!

What is your favorite winter snack? What is the most unusual winter snack you’ve tried? Let me know in the comments!

December Challenge 08 – Ornaments

What better way to show the theme of Ornaments for the December Challenge than with larger-than-life ornaments? These outdoor Christmas ornaments are about 1.5x as tall as me, and combined with the festive lights they definitely add to the Christmas spirit.

Since I have been moving a lot lately, I haven’t invested in a Christmas tree. But visiting various Christmas displays gives me the opportunity to see a lot of trees, lights, and ornaments in a variety of holiday displays. What kind of Christmas or other holiday displays does your city have? What kind of displays have you seen during your travels? Let me know in the comments!

December Challenge – 07 Best Part of the Season

In response to the theme of Best Part of the Day for the December Challenge, I chose my favorite part of the Season instead. I wanted to celebrate my favorite part of the holidays: illumination. Illumination is the Japanese word for holiday lights. All over Japan you can find special Christmas light displays, projection mapping, and elaborate crafts relating to the season.

In America you can find similar displays, including miles of road that are decorated with lights that you can drive along and view from your car or entire neighborhoods decked with lights. Even the zoos join in with light displays and extended hours.

In Japan, you can view illumination almost anywhere, but I think my favorite place to stroll and check out the Christmas and illumination displays are in Ginza. The first photo below is at Tokyo Station, but the rest are in the high-class shopping area of Ginza. Each store does its own illumination and window display. Many people are out on December nights to stroll down the streets with you.

What is your favorite place to view holiday lights? Tell me about your favorite part of the season in the comments!

December Challenge – 06 Favorite Meal

For today’s December Challenge, the theme is Favorite Meal. While I have a lot of favorite foods during the holidays (turkey, ham, etc.), in recent years I have begun to enjoy a different kind of holiday food.

When I first visited my husband’s family in Japan (he was my fiance then), his parents treated us to yakiniku, or Japanese BBQ. The meat is cooked on a grill in the middle of a table, and you can order by the plate. There are also onions, parsley, and butter that come along with the meat to season the grill.

The photo I selected to represent my favorite meal shows beautifully marbled meat that was served at my in-laws’ favorite restaurant, Tokyo Hanten. It’s also now my favorite yakiniku restaurant, and every time we visit they take us to eat there because they know how much we love the food.

When I think of holiday food, after turkey and pie and Christmas cakes, I also think of yakiniku. What kind of holiday foods do you eat during December? Let me know in the comments, so if I get a chance I can try it, too!

December Challenge – 05 Green

The December Challenge theme of Green made me think of course of evergreen trees, which are a major symbol of the holiday season. I selected a Christmas wreath to represent Green, with pine cones and Christmas lights to complete the evergreen image.

This wreath hangs at my parents’ house, and for me it represents spending time with family and good memories. Do you have any favorite Christmas or winter holiday symbols? Let me know in the comments!

December Challenge – 04 Winter Beauty

The theme for today’s 31-day December Challenge is Winter Beauty. The wilds of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming embody this theme exquisitely. In the summer, Yellowstone is teeming with vegetation and wildlife, and while much of the vegetation is absent in the winter, the charismatic megafauna still abound. The snows transform the peaks and valleys into a different scene entirely, and I find it beautiful in a barren way.

What is your idea of winter beauty? Is it a barren winter scene, or a warm sunny beach? Tell me about it!