New Year in Japan

2009 marks our third new year in Japan, and we're still loving the experience. Compared to the two previous new year's celebrations, this past new year was laidback and rather uneventful, a time to spend as a new family. As mentioned before, Kim was visiting Tokyo from the Noto for a couple of weeks during the Japanese winter school holidays, and she stayed mostly at her Japanese "host" family in Saitama. Technically they are no longer her host family since Kim's time as an exchange student years ago, but they maintained such a close relationship that they are practically her family. Although Rob and I have never met them, they did something lovely and thoughtful for us when they prepared some osechi to give us. The food was delicious, and saved me from cooking on New Year's day! The roast pork especially was good, and tasted almost like the Chinese-style roast pork. It was my first time trying datemaki, a traditional New Year's food, which is a sweet rolled omelette mixed with fish paste (looks similar to tamagoyaki or dashimaki tamago). And the sweet kuri kinton (sweet chestnuts in mashed sweet potatoes) was a gorgeous yellow colour and was yummy. Here is a photo of the food:

On the plate: roast pork, chicken roll, datemaki, mashed boiled eggs; in the bowl is the kuri kinton:


I hope everyone had a wonderful and lovely New Year's celebration!