あけましておめでとうございま! Akemashite Omedeto Gozaimasu! Happy New Year!

After a quiet Christmas, Paul and I were ready for a traditional Japanese New Year’s. In Japan, New Year’s is a much bigger holiday than Christmas. At midnight on New Year’s Eve, many Japanese people go to a shrine to offer their first prayers of the new year. We were lucky enough to be invited to spend midnight with Tomomi, a teacher friend of ours.

She and her family live very close to Ike Jinja (sounds like eekay jeenja) or in English, Ike (the name of the town) Shrine. We drove through crowds of people to get to Tomomi’s house, then walked the 5 minutes to the shrine just in time to hear the count down and see the fireworks. As soon as the fireworks were finished, everyone scurried to the shrine to offer their prayers. The huge crowd was festive, yet controlled. I think people were too preoccupied with the Taiko drumming to start a ruckus.

We waited in line for about 20 minutes before it was our time to pray. When it was our turn, we threw our change into the well, rang the bell, clapped twice, bowed twice, then clapped our hands two more times.


We then were ushered to the side where shots of sake were waiting for us. After saying hello to a few people we recognized, Paul and I were getting ready to leave when we were instructed to go back to the front of the shrine. Apparently, another Japanese custom is to throw out balls of rice dough, called mochi, into the crowd. If you catch one of the balls, it is said that you will be blessed with good fortune for the new year. This may be true, but I feel like I was lucky to CATCH the blasted thing. Those little balls are HARD! You’re lucky if you don’t get clunked in the head with one of those buggers. Well, we ended up with three, so hopefully we’ll be in good condition for 2007.
We got home from the shrine at about 2 am, so we hit the hay for a few hours, then woke up to take part in another Japanese New Year’s tradition. For many Japanese it is customary to witness the first sunrise of the new year. In our town of Ito, there are two mountains that have quasi ski lifts running up the sides so visitors can have a spectacular view of the Pacific Ocean, Ito, and on a clear day, Mt. Fuji. Toshi, my supervisor, told me that the lifts would be open New Year’s morning to shuttle people to the top of the mountain to see the first sunrise of 2007. Excitedly, Paul and I donned our warmest layers and were out of the house by 5:30. As we approached the parking lot, I was surprised to see so many people. I would guess there were about 200 waiting in line by the time we got there. The sun was set to rise at 6:51.




It was 6:47 when we got onto the lift. There was a little bit of cloud cover right at the horizon, but when the sun eventually broke through the clouds, the people started cheering and clapping. A surprising outburst of emotion from the Japanese! The large, piñata-like ball behind us burst open, spraying confetti and streamers onto the ground. It was great! We hung out on the mountain a bit then got in line to go back down.

Merry Christmas, Cowboy!

Many of the other ALTs in the area had gone on trips over the winter break, so Ito was pretty quiet around Christmas. I really wanted to have a festive Christmas Eve dinner; something to remind me of Christmas at home with our family. Paul and I and our friends Aura and Blaise got dressed up and went to Cowboys Steak Saloon for a nice steak dinner. Let me tell you, this place is one of a kind. It’s pretty rustic, outfitted with swinging door, and decorated with all sorts of country western paraphernalia. We were a bit over dressed for the place, but it didn’t matter. The owner, known as “Ohara the Kid”, had spent some time in California and spoke a little English. The four of us all got the same thing, cubed steak, steamed bean sprouts and rice. Now, it was no Ruth’s Chris or even Outback, but it was pretty good for Ito, Japan. We finished our dinners and headed to our very own Baskin Robbins, only to find that it had closed about 5 minutes prior to our arrival. Grrrr… Merry Christmas anywho!

We Finally Sold Our House!

On January 26th, 2007, our house closed, and we breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Up until now, most of our money was going to the mortgage, but now that the house has sold, we'll be able to loosen our belts a little and enjoy more of our life out here. Our realtor, Cara Ameer, of Lifestyles Realtors, Sawgrass, made this process go so smoothly. She did a really great job, so if anybody in Jax. is thinking of buying or selling a place, be sure to contact her. She made us a nice little slideshow to commemorate our first home. Here it is...

Christmas by the Sea, In Asia

Just before Christmas, Lisa and I went downtown to the beachfront park in Ito to celebrate with about 5000 other fans of Christmas. They had typical festival foods, like Ika-Yaki, Yaki-Tori, Tako-Yaki, Yaki-Gyu, Okonomi-Yaki, and many others. Here's a shot of me eating my very first Ika-Yaki with a Kirin chaser:
Have you guessed what Ika-Yaki means yet? Keep thinking, and no, Dr. Freud, it is not something that usually comes attached to the human body!

Speaking of strange foods, a few days before we went to the fireworks show, Lisa and I had a Christmas Enkai (office party where everyone is allowed to drink and be comfortable) with some of the teachers from Yawatano Shou-Gakko (grade school). We went to an Okinawa-style restaurant. The early entrees were fairly normal, even by American standards: fried chicken, noodles, rice, sushi, etc. But then they started to get strange. This particular Okinawa-style restaurant specializes in two things: 1. foods made from a very bitter tasting cucumber called goya that has tiny bumps all over its skin and 2. sliced, sauteed pig's ear. The pig's ear was OK, but it was a little too cartilaginous for me, and I didn't like the bitterness of the goya, but everything else was good. I also kept getting my cup refilled with an Okinawa-style hooch called Awamori. It was a lot like whiskey, but not as oaky, and it packed a pretty decent punch.

I almost forgot to mention that earlier in the evening, Lisa bought me a 500 Yen santa suit. There were two children coming to dinner that evening, and Lisa had told the others that I would play Santa. Here are a few pictures of our friend Kaoru and me doing our best to pull off Santa and a reindeer:

The two little girls, Riko and Kako, were quite shocked when Santa and Rudolf came around the corner. Riko Jumped 3 feet across the room into her mother's arms. They were only able to receive the gifts we had for them after a good bit of coaxing. But once they realized we were the real deal, they commenced to opening presents and munching the candy inside them. After I went outside and took off the costume, I came back inside to eat. Riko kept eyeing me suspiciously all night, but I don't think she made me.

Fast forward a few nights back to the festival. Have you figured out yet that "ika" means squid? Anyway, after we ate strange food and had a few beers, we went over to the dance show. I have included here a highlight reel with some of the fireworks, dancing, and drunken commentary from Blaise and me.

So while we terribly miss our friends and family, we had a good time at Christmas. Love and good-wishes going out to everyone!