What Japanese People Do in December

Like other countries, December is the busiest month in a year in Japan.  New Year’s Day is the biggest event, followed by New Year’s Eve and Christmas.  On December, school kids start to get excited for the winter holiday, couples get excited for the romantic Christmas dates, and families get excited for a gathering with all the relatives and family.   

We have several things to get done before New Year’s Day in Japan.  One is cleaning!  We clean our houses, offices, gardens, and even public toilets.  This cleaning is called “Nenmatsu- Oh-souji” (the end of the year cleaning).  When I was a kid all my family get busy… wipe tatami mats, clean light bulbs, change paper on shoji (window made with Japanese paper and wood) , wash doggy’s house etc.  The idea of this ”Nenmatsu- Oh-souji” is that we clean up all the mess we made in the year and welcome a New Year with clean and new atmosphere –  a new life.

Another one is … parties!  We do “bounen-kai” , “shinnen-kai” and sometimes Christmas party with colleagues, friends, and family.  ”Bounen-kai” is a party (mostly drinking at Izakaya) before New Year’s Day, and it’s for “to forget about this year”.  Whatever you did, any mistakes and regrets in the year,  you have to forget after attending this party.  On the other hand, “Shinnen-kai” is a party after New Year’s Day.  This is just a party to welcome New Year.  Sometimes you get to attend those parties almost everyday in December, for example, with friends from high school, with friends from college, with friends from office, with office members, with kid’s play group members etc.  Very busy!  But fun

My mum emailed me saying that her company was having ”Bounen-kai” lastnight, and everyone was working super fast and finished 2 hours early!  So funny…  They are so ready to drink some beer and sho-chu!

I’m having a small gathering party (kind of ”Bounen-kai”) with my friends this Saturday.  This’s organised by my friend and we are gonna just relax and do nothing but eat & drink!  Can’t wait!

My Lunch and Weird Japanese Food

I’ve been wanting to post some of my junky, fast food lunch on Umeboss, and now here they are :

All of the above does not look nice at all !  (^^;)  Food made by men! 

Today I had raw shell fish on steamed rice with seaweed salad. The other day I had vinegar-pickled mackerel on steamed rice. I’m sure that this sounds really really gross… and looks gross, yes. That’s one of the food that Japanese people eat in this fish country :p

By the way, I’ve found something funny about Japanese people’s food. I mean, people from different area have different way to eat food. According to the magazine I read, people in Aomori prefecture eat manju tempura … Manju is a Japanese sweet (rice cake with stuffing) and they deep-fry it with tempura batter?? They also eat fresh tomatoes with sugar. Is it true!? And, people from Shiga eat takuwan (pickled radish) and mayonnaise sandwich… Well, I’m from Shiga but I’ve actually never seen such food in my life! I think it’s not true… but apparently this item has been eaten for more than 50 years and I saw a photo of the takuwan (pickled radish) and mayonnaise sandwich on the magazine, and the name of the sandwich was “salad roll”. Takuwan and mayonnaise.. it’s not salad!

The funny thing is, in Yamagata prefecture, elementary school students have to bring up miso soup from their home one a year and submit it to the school. The school analyze the contents and ingredients of the miso soup.. I don’t know what that for though :p

Other versions of Bijin

As I mentioned on my previous post here and here, bijin tokei is getting more attention across the world – 240000000 viewers a month!  They’ve made Osaka version of bijin-tokei (kiss x bijin-tokei),and now here are some new versions:

circuit tokei.

The difference between this circuit-tokei and normal bijin-tokei is that girls in circuit-tokei are all race queens!

binan-tokei,

A guy version of bijin-tokei!

av-tokei

…. I don’t know what to say about this!  Apparently this av-tokei is run by different company.  After the success of original bijin-tokei, everyone is trying to copy the system.   For example, Korean version bijin-tokei (Mi-in sigye)  was created by a Korean company after Japan started its original bijin-tokei.  I guess there are going to be more versions …

Kids Birthday Party

Last Sunday we had my nephew’s 3rd birthday party!  Sister-in-law does a big birthday party for him each year, and this time it was a party at a kids gym.  He had a huge Dora birthday cake …  He loves Dora :p

Sister asked me to cater some bagel sandwiches for the party, so I made them up fresh in the morning

“Making bagels very soft” was sister’s request (as Australian people prefer soft and light bagels), so I made them as she said.  I made few varieties : ham & cheese, ham & avocado & lettuce, chicken & avocado & mayo, chicken & cheese & semi-dried tomato, tuna & mayo & lettuce, and cheese & semi-dried tomato.

Seems that people enjoyed my bagels sandwiches, and I’m very happy

My bagels sandwiches were supposed to be just a snack, as kids and parents were playing in the gym from 9:30 till 12:00.  We had the sandwiched and birthday cake around 11:00, then go back to playing, then after 12:00 we all headed to Sizzler for lunch.

Hyogo Cultural Christmas Party

Today I went to Hyogo Prefecture Government Cultural Centre in City Beach to attend their Christmas party. It was my first time to sell my bagels and sweets in public and it was fun!

When I arrived this place everyone was so kind and speaking Japanese.  It was a nice cozy atmosphere.  People started to gather up around 3pm, including kids wearing yukata.  They enjoyed chatting and playing with Japanese toys until the special guest Camellia Cha (aka Anne Norman) started to play shakuhachi.  The sound of shakuhachi was so beautiful that everyone shut their mouths and listen to its music.

After the shakuhachi, she started to read her book, “Curiosi-tea”.  I was amazed by her story, about teas around the world, history of Japan..  It was really interesting.  She used to stay in Hyogo 23 years ago and then visited around the famous tea factories and tea field throughout Japan, includes Uji in Kyoto and Shizuoka.  She speaks Japanese very well too.  

I brought some bagels, New York style cheese cake, green tea cake, almond fingers and macadamia cantuccini.  I was with Chigusa, from Wasabi & Green Tea, and she sold many kinds of tea, including sakura black tea, kamairi-cha (pan-roasted tea), and ginseng tea.  She was doing free tasting as well, and everyone enjoyed it very much.  I really loved the kamairi-cha, which the tea leaf is made in Japan by a Japanese person, in Chinese-tea way.  Hearing about all the good stuff about tea, I really thought I should drink tea regularly! 

I sold out all the bagels (because it was a Japanese event, green tea flavor sold very quickly) and more than half of the sweets I brought.  I should have brought more bagels!  Thank you very much and I enjoyed this event from the beginning to the end