New Years in Snow Country Niigata

But that was fine. If I used enough naru-hodo’s, iindesu’s, and sou desune’s, I’d get through it. I dumbed down my language to encourage them to dumb down their own language. It seemed fine for a bit, especially because most of the time my face was filled with food.

The weather:

Niigata is covered in snow most of the year. We got a message from okasan about bringing good boots, so I brought my very expensive and comfortable hiking boots.

Not, good, enough.

First thing mom aggressively bought me without my option of paying, was 9 inch rubber boots.

New Years Eve:

Food, tons of food. Sushi, sashimi, little finger sandwhiches, roast beef, fish sausages, nabe soup, fresh picked mountain vegetables, freshly pickled mountain vegetables, and plenty of beer and sake.

Mom and dad were there, her brother and his family, and two kids that were immediately attracted to me. I entertained the children by reading and translating Dr. Seuss’s “One Fish Two Fish” like a boss. And thank goodness that everybody under the age of 45 spoke Tokyo-ben. I could atleast understand 50 percent. All that effort paid off a little bit.

Even 95 year old grandpa came out to have fun with us.

We shared a lot in common.

I’m in the US Navy, he was a WWII veteran of the Japanese Army.

We both drank a lot.

And we both didn’t really know exactly was going on around us.

Midnight:

Before they left, I gave brother a hickory farms summer sausage holiday set, and I got some kind of fish cracker snack. The rest of us went into a food coma and woke up shortly before midnight.

Snow…. So much snow. It was a bit epic. Hatsumode is a tradition in Japan that on new years at the temple, you pray for two years ahead, and burn your old amulets and buy fresh ones. After visiting one temple to pray, we visited another after hours.

Like in Batman Begins, the snow was falling very hard, and we climbed very steep steps to get to a mountain side temple overlooking the mountain pass. Everybody was already gone, except an old man beating the flames down of the burning amulets. We heard laughter at the temple, and we were pointed in that direction.

My girlfriend’s father was there with the rest of the elderly community, and at the entrance, they welcomed us with “Akemashite Gozaimasu”.

Then a monk with a straggly beard offered me sake in a bowl. 

Thanks, don’t forget to check me out at www.youtube.com/janglishjerryshow

Sorry I didn’t have any video this time, I think I was too lethargic from the food and drink, and also didn’t want to invade anybody’s privacy, but I still wanted to share.

Enjoy!