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Above: Eating New Year's soba
at 1.00 am after returning from
the temple.
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Ringing the bell at the temple just a five-minute walk from the house. It was freezing cold!
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| Preparing traditional "kagami mochi," a new year's decoration (the popular new year's music show can be seen broadcast on the TV — our favorite, Yoshida Miwa/DCT, sang a song or two as well). |
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| January 1, 2005, 9:00am. New Year's Day. Traditional new year's meal, including soup with mochi. Yes, that is beer and wine for "breakfast" (we only do this once a year, so what the heck?). |
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| Delicious Japanese delicacies, "Osechi ryori" (believe it or not, this set of three bento trays cost about about $500. Great stuff! |
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| Later that day, a trip to the local Shinto shrine. (Visited the Buddhist temple last night). |
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| A rack where people display their wishes for the new year on wooden plates called "ema." |
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| Warming up by the fire. |
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| (L) Tying the fortunes we received from the shrine. (R) Washing hands outside the shrine. |
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| Our "Omikuji" (fortunes) on display (ours are the pink ones). |
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Visitors praying.
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| After visiting the shrine New Year's morning, we then began hiking up Ikoma Mountain which is located between Nara and Osaka City. Halfway up, we visited a more famous temple (Hozanji). There we enjoyed a hot and buttery baked potato and freshly-made "custard creams" (obanyaki). We encountered much snow at the top of the mountain, as expected, and enjoyed the spectacular panoramic views of Osaka City. We forgot our camera, so we had to settle for snaps taken with our cell phones. Not great photos (below), but you get the idea. We hiked about about 5-6 hours and ended our hike back on the Nara side of the mountain at the Lucky Garden, a unique, delightfully cozy restaurant/café featuring dishes from Sri Lanka. |
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| Hot, buttery potato. |
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Mini snow people. |
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| Amusement park at the top. |
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| At the Lucky Garden. |
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Copyright © 2004 GarrReynolds.Com
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