New Year's Day Round Up

I arrived safely at Koriyama Station after a night's travel, the last person to arrive on New Year’s Eve at the Tsuchiya’s house. I will write more about the train later. The weather has been snowy in Koriyama but no where near the biblical proportions that came down on Shikaoi on Dec 29th. In the end, it makes good weather for playing inside with the Wii that Santa brought. Also, people playing the Wii makes good pictures. Despite a feast for dinner New Year’s Eve we sat down at midnight to eat a tradition meal of soba which I thoroughly enjoyed. Everyone was able to role out of bed in time for a traditional breakfast of mochi (pounded rice cakes) and pickles (shown), and then all the boys headed out to shovel and between the four of us under Yukipapa’s direction we had the property cleared very quickly. How rare the occurrence of 8cm of snow was was illustrated by how long it took us to find enough snow removal gear for four people. For dinner I can imagine more pickled everything. The reason for this is locked in Japanese history. In previous generations stores were closed for a week at New Years and without the modern convenience of refrigeration, people had to depend on imperishable foods. I’ve learned to like Japanese pickles far more than Canadian pickles but eating them morning, noon and night is a bit much for me. Anyways, I can't say too much more about dinner because it's still a couple of hours away.