Happy New Year!!!

Hey everyone! So.....it's been about a month and a lot has happened! This post and the following will all be done as picture blogs instead of essays as I have become more accustomed to everyday life and find it unnecessary to blog about a normal day. I do realize that is not the case for those of you outside of Japan, but please bear with me as I'm not a fan of writing about my daily activities.

First off: Happy New Year!

Second off: This last month...

The Folk Song club at my school had a Christmas performance where all of the groups played a set of a couple songs. It was really cool! They all but a lot of work into it.

 I happened to find this typo in some music we are preparing in band...I don't know where we will find the cow.

A beautiful sunset as I left school.

A handbell choir from a private school in Kawachinagano came to play at my Rotary Club! It was really cool!

We found Eldest in Japanese!

My host dad had a Christmas party. I got to invite some friends!

The cake! Yummy!

Our Rotary District of Osaka had a Christmas Party for exchange students. Left to right: Mika (USA), Erika (Mexico), me, Brianna (USA), Talitha (Indonesia), Jaimee (Australia). Unfortunately, Maya (Germany) couldn't make it.

We enjoy each others company.

Current inbounds and next years outbounds! A couple will be coming to the US and one will be coming to Minnesota!

This picture is for Dan Forsythe. They forgot the orange.

Nanba Parks illumination

I went to Jaimme's school to listen to her give a speech! She doesn't like to cooperate for photos...

In Japan it is common to eat cake on Christmas Eve. This one has a base of Japanese sweet beans. It was really good!

This is my host dad's girlfriend's dog. She's adorable! She just accepted me.

This table is called a kotatsu. It has a heater built in with a blanket over it. It's very common for Japanese houses to have one these because there are no furnaces; just space heaters.

Nanba parks puts up lights in the winter. Yay! A waterfall!

A canal that runs through downtown Osaka.

Plastic trumpets at a music store in Shinsaibashi.

Early Sakura in Nanba Parks

It's a tall building.

This is a keychain of the station that I go through everyday on my way to school. It is the main station for my city, although there are others as well.

It snowed a little!!!

At midnight on New Years Eve, everyone eats soba.

 

Making mochi! Mochi are sticky rice cakes made only from crushed rice.

First you soak the rice for four days and then drain it.

Then the rice is steamed for about an hour.

next it gets all mashed up with a wooded hammer. Japanese rice isn't sticky when there is water, so everything that the rice touches is coated in water.

Next, the rice dough is squeezed into little balls. They are then shaped by hand and put on racks to dry. When they cool, they are very hard and cannot be eaten.

On New Years Eve, we hiked up a mountain to an old tree. Gigi makes the climb every year.

Gigi made an offering to the gods (I don't know which one this was for).

Gigi gave Sake (Japanese strong alcohol), dried persimmon, tangerines, and some huge mochi to the gods.

To eat the mochi, it has to be heated up again. Then you can eat it in soup, with Japanese sweet beans or in soy sauce.

The New Years Meal is the most important meal of the year. All of the food has a meaning, although most of them no one can remember because there are so many! One of them is a rooted vegetable with holes in it. You are supposed to be able to see your future through the wholes. The shrimp mean that the person that eats them will grow old so old that their back will become curved like the shrimp. Kind of a funny thing to look forward to, but it makes more sense in Japanese.

This fish is called a Tai. It is one of the most popular fish in Japan because it is very tasty. It is also very expensive and most people eat it on New Years Day. 

My siblings with hats that my biological mom made!

New Years Day!!!

On New Years Day, everyone receives a ton of cards in the mail. To make sure that all business relations are kept up, cards are sent to all acquaintances. It is a bigger deal than holiday cards are in the US.

We went to a shrine in Takihata for the first prayer of the year. The climb with long!

Here is the ceremony. On the steps in front of the platform are a bunch of bottles of Sake that are being blessed. The Japanese take their alcohol VERY seriously.

After the ceremony, there was a random draw for who got to take bottles home. Nanako got to pull the numbers! 

In the afternoon we went up Mount Kongo to go sledding.

We cheated and took the cable car.

Weeeeeee! Snow!!! We had an hour and a half long snowball fight. It was so much fun! 

The munchkins in their hats.

Michimoto-san took me skiing in Fukui prefecture! It was a long drive (four hours), but it was worth it! The first hill we went to was high and had a lot of snow coming down. So much fun!

The view from our hotel in Tsuruga. The Sea of Japan is out there somewhere!

The Sea of Japan is just visible there.

Lake Biwa

This tunnel was one car wide and over a kilometer long! The traffic was also two way so cars had to wait for five minutes on each end. We went through it in a camper van.

My host grandmother and I.

Yesterday, I went with Jaimee, Mika, Talitha, Erika, Brianna, and Nuredin, a YFU (Youth For Understanding) friend from Germany, to Nanba as a going away party for Jaimee. She's been in Japan for a year already. We went to a place called The Cat Cafe where you pay to drink coffee and pet cats. It was a lot of fun! So many cute cats!

These two were my favorite. They were huge! and very cudley.

After the Cat Cafe, we went and sung karaoke. 

Here are the thugs you can find in a Japanese McDonald's. Don't worry, we didn't eat all that food by ourselves.

Jaimee's last purikura in Japan!

Yesterday was a lot of fun. My host dad and I are going to the airport on Sunday to say goodbye to Jaimee. That will be hard! She is a fantastic friend and it will be weird to not have her in Japan. 

Thanks for reading! With this picture-style blog, I should be more willing to post more since it takes less writing. Well just have to see! Happy New year!

If you have any questions or want me to write about something you've been wondering about, just ask in the comments below! I love to hear from people.

Wes