Bringing in 2008 - Japanese Style!

Ok everyone, Let me start this off by acknowledging that, yes, New Year's eve was three weeks ago. I know, I'm late. Cicely has been great about keeping the blog updated, however, this entry was my responsibility, and I'm just now getting to it - I really have no excuse - so thanks for your patience!

One of my co-workers is married to a Japanese lady, and they decided to invite us over to celebrate New Year's with a traditional Japanese dinner and midnight celebration.

You'll probably recognize their kids, Mimi and EJ, from previous blog entries. Here I'm trying to figure out an origami puzzle for EJ; of course, once EJ got one, I had to make one for Mimi too. I'm learning that you can't do something for one child and leave their brother or sister hanging...



After playing around with the kids, Eric, Rich and I started pre-gaming with warm Sake. Believe it or not, Rich decided to wear that sweater BEFORE he started drinking...









After dinner and a few hours with the kids between Sake re-fills, it was time to head to the neighborhood shrine to partake in the festivities! Every neighborhood here in Japan has its own Shinto Shrine, which is denoted by the Tori Gate that serves as an entrance (the first pic in the blog entry). Starting around 11 pm, a whole bunch of the men from the neighborhood get together to begin a tradition called 'Mochi Pounding'.
They take a form of steamed Japanese sweet rice, and put it into a hollowed out tree stump/bowl of sorts, then start pounding it until it turned into a paste like substance. Considering how drunk they were, it was amazing that they didn't kill each other with the mallets. The ladies of the neighborhood are collecting the Mochi and cutting them into servings for later...

It was absolutely freezing out - we thought the best way to keep warm was to do like the locals did - consume large amounts of alcohol. You may notice the bulges in our jackets...we stuffed every pocket we could with Asahi, Kirin, and in Rich's case - Guinness. The entire case.

Here's Rich trying to stay warm in the steam from the cooking rice.





In an attempt to keep Cicely (who was not drinking) warm, we tried the huddle - it worked fine until we all started getting gassy from the beer...although she grew up with brothers, and is used to that juvenile sort of behavior (which by the way, helped to keep us warm) she kindly moved to hang out with the Japanese guys instead!


It's the alcohol...that's our excuse.




As the nite dragged on, the Japanese guys kept drinking, and kept pounding - how they didn't hurt each other was a secret to me...which is probably why they didn't let us partake in the Mochi Pounding - which was for the best, as we were having enough fun just watching.


And the final result of all that pounding - that pasty stuff I mentioned earlier. Here are Rich and Eric eating it - although Cicely and I liked it, they didn't really care for it.



Remember how I said that the wives were cutting up the Mochi into portions for later? Well, that's not just for the dumb Americans watching them pound rice, it's for the people who start lining up to go to the shrine to pray at midnite.












And finally, another round of Sake to finish off the nite and officially ring in the New Year!


Aketmashite omdetou gozaimasu! Kotoshi mo dozo yoroshiku onegaishimasu.