HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2015!!

お節料理! Osechi Ryori! (New Years feast!) I tried my best to label things that readers wouldn't know by sight maybe. The main focus of the dinner was the crab, but there were many delicious foods! We did make a few things, but mostly it comes in a large stacked box resembling a set platter of food! We separated it into smaller boxes too.

Kamaboko: Processed fish cakes made into loaves and are pretty colors! They have a festive look, don't they? (Left)
Takoyaki: Is a ball shaped snack with a wheat flour-based batter. On the inside is octopus! (Right)

Kinpira Gobou: Carrot and Burdock root (gobou) sauteed together in soy sauce. We made this! Very easy and tasty! (Burdock Root, Left)
Karaage: Basically fried chicken, famous in Oita! (Right)

Tamagoyaki: It's basically scrambled egg made into a loaf and cut in an aesthetically pleasing manner. (Left)
Edamame/Kuromame: Beans! Kuromame are sweet black beans. Edamame are soy beans.

Mochi and Dango: I typically eat it when it's in a sweet/candy form, covered in, or filled with something sweet, but it can be used in soups, or grilled, basically anything. Here is what Wikipedia has to say: "Mochi is Japanese rice cake made of mochigome, a short-grain glutinous rice. The rice is pounded into paste and molded into the desired shape. In Japan it is traditionally made in a ceremony called mochitsuki."Dango is made from a mochiko, related to mochi. Both are very chewy and glutinous!

I drank sake out of a crab head. Apparently that's a thing. According to my host family, crab and sake go hand in hand and I can assure you, they do. Hot sake is best. For the new year, of course there were fireworks. Always fireworks. In Arao, there is an amusement park that shoots of fireworks. We didn't go into the amusement park, but we went to a shrine near it and watched the fireworks from there. They were short, but very pretty. After that we visited the shrine we watched from and asked for good luck/health/fortune for the new year.

On new years day we visited a local shrine. Yotsuyama Shrine which was built nearly 1000 years ago. It's a shrine that has a god for small business owners. So at the beginning of the year many shop owners go there to pray for a good year. It's a small shrine up a small mountain. It's a steep walk, but many elderly people still made it with ease. By elderly I mean like 80 and 90 years old.

Yotsuyama Shinto Shrine

In front of a 5 yen coin!

I prayed for a happy new year for my friends and family, as well as good health! I hope I got that, because the fortune I got said I'd have a bad year with money. I got the worst one for money. Go figure! I hope everyone had a lovely New Years!