Happy New Year!

On 12/31 we went to Reuben and Mari's, friends who host a mochi party every new year. Mochi (pounded sticky rice cakes) is traditional New Years food in Japan, and Mari makes it fresh every new year. It's delicious.



After eating mochi, we did fireworks outside in the afternoon. On Hawaii, fireworks are the traditional way to celebrate the New Year, probably adopted from the Chinese custom of fireworks on New Years.





It was a full moon and this is what it looked like from our apartment rising over the mountains. We also did a bunch of fireworks at night to celebrate the new year. Our friends who live next door came over too.






The next day, we watched the sun rise and had traditional Japanese New Years food called osechi ryori. Our bento box here has rolled Japanese omelet, sweet black beans, white beans with konbu seaweed, tied bundles of konbu, white fish cake, carrot and radish vinegar salad, and special glazed chestnuts. We ate this with ozoni, a special New Years soup that has mochi in it. Chiharu's a great cook, so everything was fantastic!