お正月

Host brother testing camera

My New Years celebration in Japan started off with a big dinner with my host family's relatives. Japan's celebration is quite different from my home country Norway's celebration. In Norway families often eat a meal together, watch the fireworks and then people my age go out to party with their friends all night. Here in Japan they eat a gigantic meal with their family, watch TV and relax. The first days of the New Year are also spent visitings shrines, eating traditional foods, receiving New Year cards and much more.

On the 31th of December my host family and I drove to the grandmother and grandfather's house.

We arrived, and while the adults prepared the food I played Uno with my host brother. He always mysteriously , after shuffling the cards, had all of the "+4-cards" in his belonging , which resulted in me losing a lot. ಠ_ಠ

SUSHI DAISUKI

 After a while we sat down to eat, fairly early though, but I guess that was because there were a lot of small kids.

We had crab, osushi, osashimi, sushimaki, fried foods, sukiyaki, salads and more. We also ate soba-noodles, which helped us in wishing for a long life. I ate so much I probably gained half my weight, but no worries~（´∀｀）. I have really fallen in love with japanese food. Figured if I just keep eating and get bigger I could always start with sumo wrestling, perfect occupation!( ﾟヮﾟ)

While we were eating we watched a long New Years program called Downtown. It features 5 comedians who have to spend 24 hours in a hilarious setting were they have to watch and do a lot of funny things, but if they laugh they will be hit on their bums with a rubber club. It was one of the funniest programs I have watched in my entire life. The man who got hit the most was hit 183 times... It looked painful, but really funny though, and japanese television is crazy ( and also very, very hard to explain..) （´-`）

My host brother received his otoshidama, New Years money. A tradition in Japan is that adults give money to children in their family, or sons and daughters of close friends. To my surprise I also received some money, on the excuse that I was still a child. My host family and their relatives are supernice!! （‐＾▽＾‐）

otoshidamabukuro, envelopes you receive money in, all of them supercute!

 After the great dinner and the crazy tv-show, I played hide and seek with the kids. A really nice ending to my 2010.

No fireworks though, even though all foreigners think so [ﾟдﾟ]

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The first day of 2011 Japanese people receive a lots nengajou, New Years greeting cards. I wrote some and sent out to some teachers and friends before the New Year, so I got replys too.

"Let's go for deluxe this year too" or something similar. No doubt the funniest card my host family received.
The woman (really a man) in the caricature is a famous comedian here.

We were going to a shrine to pray for the new year, so I got to borrow my host mother's furisode kimono, and they styled my hair and make-up to fit with the kimono. ( *o*)/  

At the shrine we threw money, clapped our hands, bowed and prayed, several times for a lot of things. Some people wrote down their wishes for the new year on wooden boards, some people hung up their fortunes on strings so they would come true.  

My host brother and I are both born in the year of the rooster, so we prayed in front of our zodiac together.

And did I mention it? It was extremely cold! (`･ω･´) Wearing a kimono with bare arms didn't help me out so much there, so we bought some warm taiyaki which I used for hand warmers. I could eat them afterwards too,  happy moment, happy moment (ﾟ∀ﾟ)

Yep, japanese food is great. Tip: eat taiyaki, a fish-shaped pancake with beanpaste in it. 

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That evening we ate osechiryouri, a big lunchbox which is made to last for several days. It contains a lot of traditional food, and a lot of the food also has a meaning. For example, eating the small fish eggs will help people get healthier babies.

I dedicate this picture to Andrea, hehe

I ate something with a lot of strong mustard in it. The mustard came in my nose, and I ended up being that evening's entertainment. （´・ω・｀）

And the entertainment after that was Arashi, New Years special!

Arashi ni shiyagare dayo~

handsome

 It was a great January the 1th.

Hope everyone had a Happy New Year!

Close-up:

I love Japan.