I'm a little late in writing this but we hope everyone had a great New Year celebration. We went to a New Year's party at a friend's house off base. They recently moved into a Japanese style home right along the Sagamigawa river. It was a small gathering but very nice with lots of food and drink. We counted down the year and celebrated with a kiss at midnight. Maddie stayed up for the first time to celebrate with us! Then, we bundled up (it was very cold) and walked to a nearby shrine. It was a beautiful one on top of a little hill. We walked up the steps to the shrine and said a prayer for the coming year and rang a large bell. Then we were given some hot, sweet sake called amazake that is almost like a thin gruel. (That doesn't sound very appetizing but I don't know another way of describing it. It is a sweet drink and very good on a cold night!) We purchased a ceremonial arrow but I haven't researched what the significance is yet. We stayed at our friend's house that night. I woke up before sunrise and sat at the window. The sun came up and highlighted the nearby mountains. It was a beautiful way to start the year. The next weekend we went back to our friend's house to put our daruma in the fire. I'll explain. The Japanese have a red, paper mache figure that has large, empty spots for the eyes, called a Daruma. Every year, you make a wish, set a goal, etc. and color in one of the eyes. Then, during the year if your wish, goal, etc. comes true, you color in the other eye. During the new year time, they have these bon fires and you throw the Daruma into the fire. The whole process then starts again. We took our Daruma to one of these fires and Maddie threw it in. Our wish had been that our family stay healthy!
This fire had been much bigger when it was first started but we were a little late in getting there. The people gathered around were drinking sake and roasting mochi. (More on Mochi later in the blog.)
Later that day we went to Camp Zama where Madeleine and Vanessa participated in Kakizome. This is the tradition of writing calligraphy at the beginning of the year. Maddie had also done this when she first went back to school. The Japanese calligraphy teacher (sensei) was very impressed with Madeleine's skill, especially when she wrote the one she had memorized from school. They put it on a special kind of paper for her and Vanessa hung it in our house. In the picture above, Madeleine and Vanessa are writing the kanji for "lucky" and later wrote "power."
The next day we were in a nearby area called Machida. We like to go there for shopping, eating and walking around. We stumbled upon a crowd of people listening to drummers and making mochi. Mochi is basically steamed white rice that is pounded until it is a sticky consistancy. You can then add different ingredients to it for flavoring. It takes a lot of pounding using a large wooden mallet and wooden bowl. One person swings the mallet and the other reaches in and moves the rice around so that it all gets evenly pounded. It is quite dangerous for the one moving the rice! They saw Madeleine in the crowd and invited her up to take a few swings. She said the mallet was pretty heavy.
Afterwards, they gave us some of the finished product. Madeleine likes the plain mochi the best but Vanessa and I enjoyed it with the sweet red beans and salty soy flour. I guess that's it for now. Again, Happy New Year to all!
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