On NYE we had dinner, just my host-parents and host-brother Yuki. Their daughter was out at a friend's place having a "Countdown Party". Mid-meal, my host mother jumps up and says something along the lines of "Heavens above, wouldn't it be great if Colin experienced a typical Japanese food?"
Now things like that generally put me on the edge of my seat a bit, mostly because it can go either way. Five minutes later you're either roiling in ecstasy with the taste of sunshine on your tongue, or your lip is curling as you stare at a far-too large and far too stinky pile of fermented soy-beans. anyways, she goes away and comes out with a bag of shrimp. Which wouldn't be a problem if they were the proper level of dead that I'm used to.... But they were most certainly still alive and twitching.
Long story short, after watching everyone else do it, I worked up the courage to a) Grab the twitching critter b) break it in half, and c) Dip it in soy sauce and gobble it down. Now raw fish isn't something I have a problem with at all, it's mostly killing it myself. But, sticking to Japan's never-dying love of freshness, I took the plunge, and while I didn't take the proffered seconds, it didn't taste badly at all!
We went to sleep at about 12:30, like the hardcore party animals we obviously are, and when we woke up in the morning we headed to the temple. They go to the biggest temple in the area, which is in my host-mother's home-town, about an hour away. You start by washing your hands (left hand first, then right), then taking a sip of water and spitting it out into a trough of sorts. Then we got in a huge line of people waiting to go into the shrine, where you throw a few coins in and pray. Japanese Shinto Buddhism has a lot of clapping, and of course a lot of bowing. Ad far as the clapping goes, I tend to do it as loudly and obnoxiously as possible, just because it's acceptable and I'll take any excuse to cause a ruckus. At the end you draw a fortune, which I've done twice in Japan, and each time I've managed to pull out the absolute best one! I'm not really one for signs, but if it's good I'll take it!
Anyways, afterwards we went to their Grandmother's house. And for the record, this woman loves me. I'm really not sure why, because our interactions have been few, and at least some of them have involved me kindly and politely informing her that "I really don't like this food." I'm sure there's at least a little dose of sadism in her, especially when she grins maniacally and offers me specialties like pickled plums, or umeboshi, and watches my face contort into uncomfortable grimaces. We've all got our vices, and seeing as she's cute as a button, it's a pill (or a fish, or something indescribably bitter) that I'm willing to swallow!
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| Grandma's on the far right. For a Japanese native who really can't deal with me, look beside my left shoulder. He's small and hairy and I'm definitely not his favourite. |
Anyways, we got there and were greeted by cries of "Korin-chan!" from her, which was really nice. In Japan, you're almost always ____-san, which is respectful, but when you're really close to people they'll call you "______-chan." We talked about it later over dinner, and she pretty much said it was because she had adopted me into their family, which was a lovely, lovely feeling. We dined over sushi (A+), KFC (New Year's is their busiest day. No one likes to cook on New Years and fried chicken is HUGE here), minnows, which they informed me were cooking in maple syrup (C-... Although they only did it because they wanted to be nice and show me that the gift I gave them was being well used...), and best of all, a full, giant cooked crab. That was probably my favourite part. I've never really eaten crab before, and it was so scrumptious!
All my love to everyone and a Happy New Year!
Colin
