Winter Vacation!

So last weekend started my Winter Vacation. On the last Friday of the year, Cheryl came over from Yamanashi and hung out in my apartment while I taught on Saturday (which was a normal day filled with make-up lessons from a holiday back in November). That night she met Rodney and I after work and like we've done before we went out for ramen and then Mario Party at Rodney's place. I thought I was winning, but ended up getting last place again, haha. It was still a lot of fun. Rodney's girlfriend also came over so Cheryl got a chance to meet her, and she brought the next installment in the Mario Party series so we tested out a short game of that. It was pretty fun, and everybody was on an even playing field, having never played it before.

On the 30th, Cheryl and I hung out in my apartment getting ready to leave Fujisawa and then in the late afternoon we set out for the station. We took a regular train to Tokyo and then got on the shinkansen (bullet train) headed for Yamagata, where the cousin of a distant relative's in-law lives (we think...between the mixed Japanese and English that was spoken while we were there, I don't think anyone knows the exact relationship, haha). The train was a neat experience and when we arrived everyone was very nice. They fed us dinner (bean soup with ham) and we promptly went to bed. We were excited to experience a traditional Japanese New Year's with their family. (Note: many of the pictures to follow are credited to Cheryl)

The bullet train we rode on, taken as we were getting off in Yamagata

Me in Tokyo as we're in line for the bullet train.

Cheryl and me in our seats as we wait for the bullet train to leave. The format is more like a plane than any train I've been on. You have comfy seats, a tray table, a reading light, and a cart that comes buy to sell you food.

On New Year's Eve, we spent the morning and early afternoon making mochi, a dough made from rice. Mochi is a common food throughout the year, but the tradition of making it at home is kindof exclusive to New Year's as far as I'm aware. The process is basically taking a bunch of rice and putting it in a big wooden bowl made from a tree trunk, then whacking it with a hammer a bunch of times until you get this sticky dough. We made two batches and then brought it inside to eat. They had a bunch of different toppings/mix-ins to eat the mochi with. There was red bean paste, edamame paste (which was my favorite), sesame paste, natto (fermented soybeans...not my cup of tea), and soy powder. You could also wrap the mochi in seaweed with butter, cheese, soy sauce, whatever you liked. It was delicious, though eating a meal entirely of mochi does feel a little strange on the stomach.

Making mochi

Eating mochi

We also got to meet a good number of the grandchildren in the family. The parents delighted in having them introduce themselves in English to Cheryl and me. The older ones did very well, since English is now standard curriculum in almost every middle school and a lot of elementary schools. The funniest part was when the youngest grandchild came up and his aunt decided to help him out. She prompted him, "My name is..." and he responded "マヨネーズ！？" (mayoneezu, or "Mayonnaise!?") We later played games with the grandchildren including but not limited to Memory, Jenga, and a hilariously fun vocabulary game where one raced to slap an English vocabulary card using a stretchy-sticky-gummy hand thing that may have come from one of those mini toy vending machines.

That afternoon we went for a walk around Yamagata, through the park, and then up to the top of a local tower so we could see the city. We also walked by the old prefecture office. Then in the evening we packed into the vehicles and drove to the onsen (hot springs). It was my first time at an onsen, so it was a really cool experience for me. Did I say cool? I mean hot. Very hot. I nearly passed out at one point, but did make it back to the entrance and cooled off in time, haha. The men get separated from the women at the onsen, and the only other man in our party spoke little to no English, so along with a bath I also got a good exercise in my Japanese skills. Upon returning we drank beer and watched the annual Japanese music contest/show called the Kouhaku Uta Gassen. Just before midnight we ate soba noodles (to symbolize long life), and then after the clock struck midnight we all bundled up and went to the local shrine. There we stood in line for awhile, then each paid our five yen, rang the bell and prayed. Then we walked back to the house and slept.

The view from the top of the tower.

Cheryl sitting on a windowsill in the tower

Me staring out a window

Soba noodles (and lots of them). They were delicious, as was everything we ate there.

A nighttime picture of the shrine we went to after the strike of midnight

On New Year's Day we ate special Japanese food called osechi, which is a huge variety of foods packaged into these beautifully decorated boxes. To try one of each different kind of food would be nearly impossible, but I did try a lot of things I couldn't identify. None of it was bad, some of it was good, and all of it was strange. The one thing with osechi: sometimes it's better not to ask. There was one piece that I tried but couldn't identify and later found out it was squid eggs....:/

Osechi. From the left, the first four boxes were homemade, which is impressive. The boxes are deeper than you would believe, and the food is actually rather filling.

Also on New Year's Day most of the women and girls dressed up in kimonos. We were planning on going out somewhere but it was raining, so everyone stayed indoors and took pictures. Then we had leftover osechi for dinner. There was also plenty of drinking and friendly conversation made up of very mixed Japanese and English.

Cheryl in the kimono and me in jeans and a fleece >_>

The following days consisted of a variety of activities not really related to New Year's. We did go shopping at one point to take advantage of some holiday sales that were going on. I didn't buy anything, but it was still fun to get out. We also watched the Hakone Ekiden race on TV, which is a collegiate race from Tokyo to Hakone and back (217.9 km total, or 135 miles). It's a relay race with each team consisting of 10 runners. It looked pretty intense and was fun to watch. Japanese commercials are also ridiculously silly so they made it that much more enjoyable. On our last full day there we went with two of the women to the top of the local mountain, Zao. We took the bus partway up the mountain and then the cable car up the rest of the way. I've never seen so much snow in my life. And it was cold (about -8°C or 17°F). There we walked around in the snow and took pictures next to a huge Jizo (kindof a local god/spirit) statue that had been buried up to its chest in snow. We would have been able to see more but the weather was pretty bad and it was incredibly foggy. There were pictures, though, of the famous "snow monsters" of Zao which are basically trees that have been covered with so much snow that they form into huge misshapen lumps. It would've been cool to actually see them, but what can you do?

The view from the cable car on our way up Mt. Zao

And the same view as we climbed higher.

That's actually a full-sized statue, mostly buried in the snow I'm standing on. It was cold.

On the morning of January 5th we hopped on the shinkansen again and returned to Fujisawa. Unfortunately Cheryl hadn't been feeling well so we pretty much spent the rest of yesterday and a good chunk of today relaxing in my apartment, playing Pokemon, and watching TV online. This pretty much wraps up my winter vacation. Now I just have to clean up a bit around my apartment, find dinner, relax a bit and then one more night of sleep before it's back to the daily grind. I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and Fantastic New Year's!