2009-01-03

Akemashite Omedeto Gozaimasu

or Happy New Year! Perhaps it would be more appropriate to say, "Happy New Year week," because it still feels like January 1 here in Japan. The New Year celebration has been going on and on and on. After having stayed in the warm apartment to avoid having to brave the hail and/or snow for the few days before New Year's Eve, we got a bit too excited about having a reason to leave the apartment and started celebrating at 6:00 p.m. We went back to visit the little okaachan and ojichan izakaiya we'd enjoyed so much before for some tasty traditional Japanese food and Niigata sake. The cute little old couple were closing up shop a little early, since New Years is a family holiday in Japan. We moved on to a much less interesting izakaiya, but by 9:00 we were bored by Nagaoka's "nightlife." We decided to ring in the New Year with some strawberry champagne, which proved more difficult to pop open than one would expect (see the And so This is Christmas... photo album).

On January 2, the New Year celebration continued with some great Japanese music. We saw some Shinto music performed. The most interesting instrument was a mouth organ unlike our simple harmonica. It literally looked like a miniature organ held up to his mouth. Here's a video of that music (Please forgive my terrible videography.):




After that group performed, a very different music and dance group went on stage. They played the type of music you would hear at a festival. One of the men danced around stage formally before dressing himself in a dragon costume. After the dance was finished, he walked around the audience snapping at the children while the kids' parents took pictures of their sometimes scared young ones. Here's a video of the second musical group (Please forgive the shoulder of the man sitting in front of me.):



When the music stopped, we stepped outside only to hear... more music. We walked down Ote Street, a normally quiet street (depsite being Nagaoka's "main street"), and found it filled with the sounds of taiko drums. There was a troupe of taiko drummers playing ginormous drums in front of the old lady department store in tiny little shorts while the snow fell around us. Most of them were getting a workout banging their sticks against the sides of the drums, but I felt pretty bad for the cymbal player. We spent the rest of the day doing some belated shopping and successfully avoiding the temptation to buy one of the many surprise bags the stores were offering. They were so tempting, sitting there just being huge and mysterious. Of course, they were in fact filled with all of the crap the stores haven't been able to sell in the past year, but there was that slim chance that something worth more than the $50 they were charging could be inside that giant bag. Alas, we walked home with lots and lots of presents for others, but no surprise bag. Whew. 

Today was my favorite day of New Year's celebrating. My Japanese friend and coworker invited Dustin and me to join her and her daughter in some New Year activities. First, we went to the shrine to get our yearly blessing. It was about an hour drive to get to the shrine's parking lot and another five minutes driving around the parking lot looking for a spot, but we spent about three minutes total in the shrine, including the line we waited in for Dustin to ring the bell to call for our blessings from the priest. From there, we stopped for a lovely little meal at a nice Italian restaurant before making it to snow country. Once we got closer to the mountains, the sides of the roads were piled high with snow the bulldozer had pushed off the road. At one point, I looked out my window and saw nothing but snow right in front of my face. Winding around the mountains was a bit scary at first, but I put it out of my mind and trusted Yumi's years of experience on these icy roads. We made it there and back alive, so my trust was justified.

Eventually, we reached the onsen (hot springs)! Japanese hot springs are usually by the mountains. This one was right across the street from a ski resort, so lots of people using the onsen came right off the slopes. When you go to onsen, you enter the locker room, take off your clothes, and go into the onsen in your birthday suit. Before today, I was a bit nervous about the nakedness of an onsen experience, but I talked myself into it and was ready to go right into that locker room, strip down, and spend an hour taking a bath with dozens of people I don't know, a teenager I'd known for a few hours, and a coworker I'd know for a few months who I wouldn't see naked in most circumstances.  Much to my surprise, my Japanese friend informed me I'd be onsening solo, because she was too nervous to go in with me.  I was shocked to find out that a Japanese woman, used to many naked trips to the onsen was more scared than an American woman, conditioned from childhood to think of nakedness as private. I went in alone, spent some time in the hot water, endured stares from Japanese children who may never have seen a foreigner (much less a naked one), and left refreshed and with a bit more audacity. Our night ended at Yumi's house with some customary Japanese New Year food. In Japan, the woman of the house spends all day on December 31st cooking food for the first week of the year, so she can start the year off with a rest. We had our second huge meal of the day, this time full of osechi-ryori. We had sweetened black beans for our health, sweet potatoes with chestnuts for making money, and ozoni soup with mochi, a food once eaten by the samurai to give them energy for battle.  It was a lovely end to a lovely day and a wonderful beginning to what will certainly be a wonderful year.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just when I was complaining about a little freezing rain coming in tonight...I see your snow pictures...BURRRRR! At least skiing is fun and hot tubs!
Love-
Trac

Dana said...

We didn't actually get to ski... maybe sometime this winter.