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I’m writing this just before I go to sleep on new years day, however, I have no idea when I’ll get to pst this online so it may seem a little delayed. Forgive me and enjoy the read!
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Now that today is over I feel as though I’ve done a lot, the energy levels are bordering on zero, but all I’ve really had to do is digest!
You’d be surprised how much energy goes into digesting as much food and alcohol as had to be consumed today.
We started early with a cup of sake, but not just any sake, this special new years bottle contained gold flakes! This is to bring wealth in the coming year I guess, I drank extra to try and make sure it works! Breakfast also consisted of a special soup with sticky rice cake, then we ate various delicacies from specially packed boxes of beautifully presented dishes. Naoko and her mum had spent the last few days preparing various bits and pieces to fill the corners of these boxes, seeing it finally come together and then getting to taste it was worth the wait!
I’m told we will be eating the rest for breakfast over the next couple of days, which is lucky because there was no way I had room to try one of everything yet!
After breakfast Naoko’s younger brother turned up having just come from working at a club in Tokyo all night. The poor guy just wanted to sleep but there was no time for that. He finished breakfast just in time for us to go next door to grandmas house for lunch with the extended family.
Having barely had a break to digest breakfast we were served a delicious lunch of home delivery fresh sushi packed into big round trays. Every kind of sushi you can imagine it seemed, except for the fugu (puffer fish)! We had multiple kinds of tuna, and prawns. Crab, Salmon, Squid, Scallops, White fish, Sea Urchin, Salmon Eggs… I think there was more but I can’t remember the rest. To top it off there was also the left overs from breakfast again. The bottle of gold flaked sake made an appearance again, but was promptly finished off by Naoko’s dad and I. He attempted to raid grandmas liquor cabinet but that hadn’t been updated in about 20 years so the contents were somewhat dubious and possibly not fit for human consumption.
I did my best to keep up with the Japanese conversation, but by the time I’d figured out what had been said, then managed to make a pause in eating, it was usually far too slow to say anything relevant! Needless to say I did a lot of listening practice.
After another small pause after eating, Naoko, myself, and her two cousins went for a drive to try and pay our respects at one of the local shrines. The first one we drove to though, had a queue down the stairs and back out the gate! We gave up on that and came back to a smaller temple just near the house, a very nice little place we visited on new years a few years ago when I lived here. As you can see in the photos it’s a very small local place on the river bank.
We got back from our drive with just enough time to have a 15 minute nap then head over to grandmas for dinner! Luckily by now all the sake had been drunk so the only remaining mission was to eat more. Rice mixed with various fish and egg, crispy noodle salad, and deep fried shrimp!
Needless to say there is no more room in my belly for even a piece of fruit! It was a really good day though, and nice to feel part of the family.
The eating is far from over however, I’m told there’s three more days of this to go! It sure beats our one day of Christmas feasts!
If I survive the next few days I’ll be sure to update everyone again soon! Tomorrow I’m off to drive the streets of Kanagawa on my own while Naoko catches up with some old friends for the day, then tomorrow night we are off to dinner with her mums side of the family!
Until next time!