Holy Shamoly!

Well, it certainly has been a while hasn’t it.  You know…I’ve been busy, lazy, whatever you want to call it.  Excuses aside, hello!  Long time no see, I’ve missed you! 

I sit here wondering where on earth to start catching up on what’s been going on.  SO MUCH.  Well, so much, and so little.  School, school, some more school, a bit of holiday new years-y fun, and a little more school.  Alas, classes are over, and only one last paper to write, so what better way to avoid paper writing than to update my blog?!  Ahoy!

To get everyone in the mood for fun, I will start you off with a little something I like to call “cute doggy: ready for school”…

This little guy was just TOO excited to get on his way to school, even had his backpack and everything ready to go.  Doesn’t it just make you sick?  Whether for cute-factor or not, I bet it does.

Moving on to less adorable things, how was your New Years?  I thought it was about time to ask seeing as the first week of February is now gone.  Mine was just great.  Was able to spend some time doing traditional Japanese things, including eating interesting foods and watching Kouhaku!  On that note, let’s begin the photo spree!

(The order of these photos will be off, sorry!)

Here we have the traditional Japanese new years foods.  It included a lot of seafood, and meats, some beans and mixed salads, and a tiny couple squares of dessert crepe.  There were so many meanings of all these things that I have unfortunately now forgotten, my apologies!  We ate this as “brunch” on New Year’s day.

That yellow guy on the right is half a lobster!

This was holding the sake that we drank.  The tiered plate-looking things on the left are used to drink it from.

This was also part of brunch.

I went to a gorgeous old soba noodle restaurant and had a fantastic lunch on New Year’s eve.  It is tradition to eat soba (buckwheat) noodles for New Years.

(I didn’t eat the flower…dawwwww.)

And now for some other photos from New Years related things…

My host family’s beautiful home.  It’s all wood interior and exterior.  Gorgeous!!

This is the second floor.  Open concept style.

My room.  Yes, I slept on that *wonderful* futon on the floor.  And by slept I mean didn’t sleep.  Oi.  The big part on top is the comforter….

 

Living room fireplace…

 

 

And now for some great shots from the Kouhaku show that was on from about 7pm until 11:30pm on New Year’s eve.  It was quite entertaining!

These fellas were on first, and boy were they snazzy!

100% snazzy!

The hosts, including the big superstar boys from Arashi.

 

Nice name….

But even better were the backup dancers.  Wahoo!

Ooh, the first of many costume changes for Arashi!

I was happy to see a lot of traditional music mixed with all the current stuff.

This was a neat stage setup!

I can’t remember which costume change this was…three, four?

When Arashi performed they used this piano which was recovered from the tsunami area.  The one side had an enormous scratch on it.  Sorry, not pictured here.

I was told that this performer always had really extravagant outfits for this Kouhaku show.  She certainly didn’t disappoint this year!

Holy jeez…

And her sweet ride…

 

Well, that’s about all I have the energy for today.  I will be travelling a bit over the next three to four weeks, so hopefully I can snap some good photos and post them at some point in the next ten years.  No promises though. 

I hope everyone is happy and healthy, wherever you are!

So long, folks…

xoxoxo