Still eating osechi...

Cooking is easy at the moment.


Just dig out some of the osechi from the fridge and put it on a plate. Make miso soup and put a grilled rice cake in it - cut some pickles and we are away...again...and again.

And just in case we are in any danger of running out: Okaasan went out yesterday (yippee!!) and bought MORE fish paste! A bargain bag of four fish paste rolls.

Yujiro says he'll eat them with beer. Okaasan is happy to eat it for every meal. I wonder if we could stretch New Year food until early summer?

She seems fine. A bit all mixed up about whether it is ok to go out at the moment, and what shoes she should wear when she goes etc - but yesterday she was out downtown, a rare occurence recently.

I've been enjoying the last days of my winter holiday - meeting friends out, hosting another Couch Surfer, err...doing my accounts for November and December...

This week in Japan everyone gets New Year cards from friends/family/anyone who knows you.
Okaasan got ONE card. From the nephew who got married last year. It's sad, her own family don't send cards, and apparently any friends left in Saitama don't know her address, or have died.

It's the custom here NOT to send or receive them if a close family member died last year - something I don't subscribe to at all - the end of year after someone's died is EXACTLY the time when you need cards from people saying they are thinking of you!

Happily I got a good selection of Christmas cards this year, and more than a few Japanese New Year cards too happily - here is my living room card display area! So pretty I think I keep them until summer....

OUR New Year card this year was a winner: designed by the wannabe manga artist son of one of my students.....it incorporates the Chinese zodiac for this year (Rabbit) with Yujiro's summer job (VeloTaxi), with us and the cats....

A Happy New Year to all blog readers!