This week we wanted to celebrate the new year in Japanese style! So we researched Japanese New Year traditions and tried out as many of them as we could!
Traditionally, Japanese New Year's Eve dinner consists of "osechi ryori", basically large bento boxes full of an assortment of fancy dishes that are supposed to each symbolize a different aspect of good fortune during the new year.
However, we also discovered that these "osechi ryori" boxes apparently cost around $80... for the really cheap, lower quality ones, and can go up to prices around $2000. The one in the picture above costs 21,000 yen.... which is equivalent to about $186. Soooo we decided to research other options.
We settled on this dish called "toshikoshi soba" which is also a traditional Japanese food to eat at New Year's Eve dinner, and we decided to buy all the ingredients ourselves and make it at home! See the video below to see how it went, and what Jordan thought of it! Here's the recipe we used!
After Jordan went to bed, we watched "Kōhaku Uta Gassen", more commonly known simply as "Kōhaku", a Japanese show that airs on New Year's Eve. It translates to "The Year-End Song Festival." It's a "battle of the bands" type show where lots of Japanese music performers come and compete. It's supposed to be about as popular as Americans watching the Rose Bowl on Thanksgiving, so we decided we couldn't celebrate Japanese New Year without it! It turned out to be pretty entertaining! Watch the video below to see what we thought were the best little snippets of the show!
The Japanese aren't big on fireworks, so we had a peaceful and quiet night. The next day (New Year's Day) we participated in one last New Year's Japanese tradition: playing Fukuwarai! Fukuwarai is a children's game (but played by adults as well) similar to Pin the Tail on the Donkey, except you pin the facial features on the face. We had lots of silly fun! See the video below.
That's about it! We had a fun New Year, and we hope you did too!
See you next time!
Love,
Brittany and Christian
Picassos all of you. I actually thought the upside down face was funniest because it looked like it had a beard. I think I will do a variation of this in nursery when we talk about bodies.
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