Akeome...

Welcoming the year of boar.

It's the last day of 2006, and again Mr and Mrs Fujishima invited me again to their house to celebrate the new year.

The last supper of 2006.

This year I celebrated the new year's eve in a Japanese way. We watched PRIDE. while having dinner, of course we had nabe for dinner. After that we watched Kohaku Uta Gassen ("Red vs white singing contest"), you know, one of the country's most-watched television programs. I hate explaining this but...popular singers (and singing groups) split into two teams, women in the red team and men in the white, which then alternate while competing for the audience's heart throughout the evening...bla, bla, bla.
At around 11:30 pm, the final singer (or group) sings, and the audience and a panel of judges are asked to cast their votes to decide which team sang better. The winning team gets a trophy and "the winner's flag"...the white team won this year but frankly speaking, WHO CARES!!!, it's either red or white.

Mr Fujishima is preparing the toshikoshi-soba.

And then it's Toshikoshi-soba time. It's a tradition based on people's association of eating the long noodles with "crossing over from one year to the next," the meaning of toshi-koshi. While the noodles are often eaten plain, or with only chopped scallions, in some localities people top them with tempura...we had it with kakiage tempura.

Me and Mr, Mrs Fujishima.

After we were full with soba, etc. We went for a stroll to the nearest temple to pray for the year's wish. I was quite a long stroll to the temple which later Mr. Fujishima explained that he intentionally circled Setagaya park 2 times because he needed a lot of walking since we had a humongous meal that night.

3am Eternal.

Since it was already 3 in the morning, after I said goodbye to Mr. and Mrs. Fujishima me and Okamoto-sempai walked to Shibuya station. When we arrived, to my suprise, JR line were still running. We took the 4:15am Yamanote line train and I eventually arrived home at 5:15...
Otsukaresamadesu...