Happy New Year!

Happy New Year humans!

I figured that since it's such a big deal in Japan, I should write a post. 

Now, maybe it's because I live amid cows and corn and rice fields, but the New Year celebrations in Japan were nothing like what I would have imagined. At least in my host family. I'm sure it was different for everyone, but for me, it was fairly uneventful. Yesterday was, of course, New Year's Eve, and that was spent staying up until 12, eating snacks until I'm sure I gained a few pant sizes, and teaching the older of my two host sisters some English. However unconventional that may sound, it was surprisingly fulfilling; exactly the amount of stuff I would want to do on New Year's Eve. Teaching my host sister English was probably my favorite part, though. She's really into it, but is too shy to ever ask me straight out how to say something or show her the pronunciation. Her, my host mom and I have a system: she asks my host mom while I'm sitting next to her, and my host mom will either try to get her to ask me herself, or will ask me to which I respond (facing and looking at my host sister, mind you). The first few months of this shyness was, to put it bluntly, rather off-putting, but she's definitely grown on me. Probably because in a way, we're similar, since we're both the oldest and we're both girls, etc., etc. ANYWAYS, teaching her English. Most of the English I ended up teaching her was fairly useless in everyday speech, but it was fun nonetheless. Some examples from yesterday's 'lesson' are: violent, garlic, screeching and monkey. Yaaaaaay for weird words! She totally remembered them, though, which is the funny part. If you're wondering why she wanted to know words like screeching, violent, and monkey, let's just say my two youngest host siblings are going to be getting a lot of insults in the next few days that they can't understand. ;)

I ended up going to bed at around 1, and everyone had to wake up in time to leave for church at 9 in the morning... which ended up being 9:30 anyway. Not only was it too early, but it's also especially difficult to wake up when it's ridiculously cold in your room. 

Somehow I woke myself up with enough time to eat breakfast, and by 9:20ish, we were off. After the service everyone sat down to eat a bit, and then we came home to relax for the rest of the day.


Yes. That was my New Year's Day. And it was fun all the same.

Now, since I'm done with my fascinating New Year's update, I'll bombard you with pictures of food that I've accumulated since I said I'd try taking pictures of more meals (and by 'bombard', I mean giving you a playful punch on the shoulder... because it's not that much).

This is pickled 大根 (White Radish). I don't remember what the brown thing is... But the pickled white radish is actually quite popular in Japan. I'm not a huge fan, but I prefer it over regular white radish.

 This was dinner on the 30th. Trust me, I took more than I have right here. There's fried chicken, chopped cabbage, and, of course, rice.

 This was lunch on the 31st. My host dad made it, actually, and it turned out to be really tasty. It's pretty much fried rice, only I feel like it's an easier version because he made it in less than 5 minutes. O_O

 Here's my New Year's Eve dinner! Apparently it's pretty traditional to have this in Japan around New Year's. It's just soba with some chicken thrown in and some green onion.

 This, children, is the beginning of greatness.

 This is what greatness looks like after it's come out of the oven for approximately 30 minutes -- a.k.a: too long. (Btw, if you can't tell, it's メロンパン [melon bread])

 For dinner tonight, my host mom made some tiny meatballs (of which I think I unknowingly ate most of), and then I also had some mochi, which is what I have in this here picture (mochi is rice that has been pounded into a stretchy, chewy, dough-y-like mound, which is much tastier than it sounds). I ate it how I always do: baked, dipped in soy sauce with a little sugar.

And here we have a snack that's not Japanese, but I found it here and damnit, it's delicious. Not as good as the real thing, but they'll do.

So there you have it. Hope I didn't make you too hungry. :)

JRIFVOPEFKOSODLK;LH,;

-Ellie