This year, I was fortunate enough to celebrate New Year's Eve with 'family'. On December 31st, I arrived without many problems to the Iwasa's house at around 6 P.M. with Reiko waiting for me. Since everyone would be arriving later that night, we spent some time together talking. Here's the supper I ate that night!

At around 8:30, I realized that I forgot my glasses and my contact lens solution, which would be a huge problem since I was staying there for a few days. So after receiving explanations from Reiko on how to get to the closest 7eleven, I threw on my jacket and was off into the night. I didn't really have any problems getting there. I managed to find what I needed and I soon arrived back home. By this time, Yoshiki had already arrived home. I had already eaten supper with Reiko, so I simply talked with Yoshiki while he ate. Then, Reiko turned on the TV so that we could watch the National New Year's Eve program that almost every family watches during this time. It includes things like performances from all the big artists, speeches, small little acts, and the whole time they have a theme they follow. But a short while after that, Yoshiki switched the channel to watch the Japanese boxer who was in the final for a world boxing cup. So we ended up watching that, which was pretty exciting. 

Once that was done, we switched back to the New Year's Eve program, and soon, Kenzo arrived home. After greeting him, he sat down and ate as well. But we were soon all served another meal called "Toshikoshi Soba" which is the traditional meal that the Japanese eat on New Year's Eve. Eating the "soba", Japanese noodles that resemble spaghetti, as the years change is supposed to represent that one will live a long life this year again. Since the noodles are long, you can get that image as you're eating it. The noodles were great, and I really couldn't believe I was actually doing what I had heard of and studied many times before.

After the meal, we watched the program till 12:00, and at that time, we all said: "Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu. Kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegaishimasu." which can be translated as: Happy New Year. All the best wishes for the new year. And then we were off to sleep haha.

The next morning, I woke up early with the boys. Since they still had SCHOOL on New Year's Day, they had to leave early. So for breakfast, Reiko had made the traditional New Year's Day meal called "Osechi". And she really put a lot of effort. This meal has a lot of history behind it and I still don't understand all of it, but here's what I got.

This meal was made by the mother, but back then, there were no microwaves and refrigerators, therefore most meals had to be cooked the day of. But in order to allow the mother a break during the holidays, this meal was prepared in large quantities, much like my mother's cooking..., and would be eaten during January 1^st to 3^rd. This food could be kept at just cooler temperatures, and therefore could last that long. The meal consists of many different kinds of small little appetizers, all separated into the compartments of a specially designed traditional box. What is even crazier is that for every appetizer, there is a special meaning. For example, the golden food you see in the picture below is called Kurikinton, and it is said that if you eat these during the New Year, you will make a lot of money this year.

So yeah, I was really grateful to be able to eat this meal. After that, Kenzo left for school, and I passed out again. Soon, Daisuke and his wife arrived and they ate their share of the breakfast and we chatted on a few different topics. 

Once they were done, we got ready to leave. Daisuke and Shuko were taking me to a temple nearby to make our year's wishes. Originally, we were supposed to go all the way to Hakone to do so, but lately Shuko's health had been bad so we decided to stay close. We got to the temple and of course, we waited in line. Japan is crazy for that. As we were waiting, it started snowing, quite heavily actually. It was one of the most beautiful snowfalls I had ever seen. When we finally got in, we washed our 'souls', threw our coins, bowed twice, then clapped twice and made our wishes. Once that was done, we grabbed some hot drinks and stood next to the fire.

But soon it was time to head off to... an "onsen"!!! Well not exactly an onsen, but a smaller version called "sento". Both include hot water baths, and so I was very excited. We got there, said bye to Shuko who would be entering the female side of it. Daisuke and I entered the male one, placed our things in a locker and cleaned our bodies before entering the baths. Daisuke showed me all the different types of baths. That day, we tried a normal hot tub, a sauna, an outdoor bath (in the snow, which was perfect), a lay down bath, with water just running down your back, an extremely hot bath 43°C I think, and lastly, my favourite, a cool bath.

We left feeling peaceful.

That day, we did some grocery shopping, talked a lot, relaxed at home, ate a meal, and soon, it was time for Daisuke and Shuko to leave. Daisuke was falling asleep just sitting there holding Mirei, it was kind of funny and cute. Both he and I had passed out after the the hot baths, which can really drain your energy. I got to hold Mirei quite a lot and she was soo cute. Daisuke, Shuko left, and shortly after that, I was talking another hot bath haha, and was off to bed.

The next day, I woke up to eat with the two boys again, and to say my goodbyes. I wouldn't be seeing them for a while, and I was glad I had been able to speak to them this time. I played a little bit of guitar as Reiko made me bento, and I was then off.

It was a very interesting New Year's experience, but I'm glad I got to see a traditional Japanese New Year's celebration. I didn't get to see Shigenori this time around since he was visiting his mother's family in Akashi, but it had still felt like I was at home. 

Thank you Reiko for everything.