Sophisticated Fun: It's Cold. Like a Bitch.

So, if you can't guess from the title of this blog just how cold it is, let me tell you: it's been in the negatives.

It's of course gotten colder since I took this picture.

Yes, that's Celsius, but still. Anything below freezing in just inappropriate and unacceptable. Scratch that, anything below 68°F is inappropriate and unacceptable. Why am I babbling on about the weather? Weather is one of those topics you bring up in a conversation when you have absolutely nothing else to talk about. Or, when you think the other person can't understand anything you say until you make gestures about how hot or cold it is today and awkwardly comment on how warm their jacket looks.

Anyway, I have LOTS to talk about, so enough with the weather. My parents came to visit me in Japan!! I was so happy they were able to come and spend my entire winter vacation with me! Since it was over a month ago that they visited and my fond memories have been replaced by a giant jumble of Japanglish, I will just share the highlights of the trip:

My parents flew into Tokyo the Friday before my break started and spent two nights there before I met them in Yokohama (横浜) on Sunday. I get an email from my dad while I'm at work on Saturday with the subject, "your mother fell". Apparently, she was so in awe of the sights around her, she failed to see a sign and tripped. Luckily, she was ok. Just a bruised knee. So, I met them in Yokohama on Sunday with Mary and we had lunch in the Chinatown area there and walked around after what seemed like hours to find out hotel. Monday, we went to the Ramen Museum in Shin-Yokohama where there were street performers and different ramen shops from all around Japan that you can try. I don't like soup, but that was good. We made our way back to Shizuoka so I could go to work for one more day before my highly anticipated 10 day winter vacation. The next couple days we made short day trips to nearby cities like Hamamatsu (浜松) and Atami (熱海). I didn't get the memo, but Japan pretty much shuts down between 12/28-1/4. We ate Hamamatsu's famous eel, but that's about all there was to do there. Except for the German brewery, of course. I'm not the best tour guide, but I managed to get us to Atami and up to the castle and back to Shizuoka in time to go to my favorite sushi place!

Shark Fin Soup anyone?

Chinatown in Yokohama

Chinese food in Japan!

Sushi at a rotating sushi bar in Yokohama Station

Eating onigiri (rice balls)

Ramen Museum

Eel lunch

German brewery.

Mt. Fuji on the way to Atami

Atami Onsen manju (Atami's famous snack..hot-spring steamed buns filled with bean paste)

Atami Castle

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I just realized, I haven't said that yet. On with the adventure...

We were also invited by a family I befriended from work to celebrate New Years and learn about Japanese New Year traditions. We got to help pound rice to make mochi and kagami-mochi (鏡餅)--a new year's decoration consisting of two round discs of mochi, stacked, with an orange on top, meant to bring luck. My dad made quite an impression on the little girl, Yuna. She cried when he left.

Spending New Year's Eve in Japan was so far from my normal drunken American celebration. I didn't even drink! The family took us to a shrine to countdown to the new year of the Dragon, because that's just what you do. I will do my best to translate the explanation I received about what we witnessed. So, apparently in Buddhism, there is a lion dance where the lion eats the 108 bad spirits. Then these girls come and do a dance and at one point people started throwing mochi into the crowd. Then the firemen did a dance (very disappointed. they were not attractive). We also got to throw a 5-yen coin and bow and clap and ring a bell. I hope my wish comes true. I asked the Japanese g-d's for a boyfriend. I just hope they don't give me a Japanese boyfriend. After all the festivities, we went to Denny's! It's not the same. There aren't any pancakes!

On New Year's Day, we went on an adventure to Kuno-san Tosho-gu Shrine (久能山東照宮). We took two buses and a ropeway to get there to find out it's like another 800 yen to walk to the shrine. I saw a glimpse of it, so I'm going to count that as, I went there. That evening, we returned to the other family's house and they had a tea ceremony where we drank special tea that tasted like asparagus called Gyokuro (玉露) and ate special new years snacks like Kazunoko (数の子)--it looks like dried mango, but really it's thousands of tiny herring eggs and Hanabira-mochi (花びら餅)--mochi filled with white miso paste and a piece of burdock root. It was quite the experience.