We spent the days between Christmas and Newyear's lazily in Emma's room, watching movies, listening to music and relaxing, but we also went to see the Harry Potter movie. I must say the atmosphere of the movie impressed me, but the story was not as interesting. 

A couple of days before New Year's there was a thorough cleaning of the house (susu-harai) by Emma and her mother, and I helped with the little I was allowed. Before midnight on New Year's Eve we ate toshi-koshi-soba (soba-noodles eaten during the switch to a new year), and Emma and I received o-toshi-dama (a symbolic gift of money in a special envelope). To my surprise nothing special was done at midnight, except saying Happy New Year to eachother. Then it was time for hatsumoude - the first visit of a shrine in the new year. This is more a traditional thing than a religious thing, and most everyone does it - resulting in extremely crammed roads to the more popular shrines. We  left the house just after midnight and reached the shrine a few hours later. After passing a long long line of stands selling all kinds of food and sweets, and waiting in a long line for a long time we finally reached the inner part of the shrine. The thing everyone is standing in line for is a box into which you throw coins and make a wish for a prosperous year or the like. Over the box hangs a sacred rope, and the rope at this specific shrine is apparently the largest one in Japan. Some young guys threw coins from the far back and I doubt that they hit anything but other people. I wonder why they took the time to come all the way there and then just throw the coins like they didn't give a damn. When we reached the box we threw our coins and made our wishes and then it was done. Before going back we went to the see the giant drum and the giant bell of the shrine. They too are the largest ones in Japan, I was told. When heading back to the car we bought and ate some mochi sweets at a stand. Mochi is steamed pounded rice, which is used in several sweets and some dishes, particularly after New Year's. When we got home it was around 05:00 and everyone was really tired. In the morning we had o-sechi-ryouri (New Year's Dishes). As you can see on the pictures there are a wide variety of dishes (and most of them have symbolic meanings, but I won't go into that). Much like the Christmas food in Sweden, the same food is served for several days. But there were so many dishes that I wasn't able to taste a big part of them before I was completely stuffed. And of course most of it was delicious. The few things I didn't find delicious were not bad in taste, but just had a taste that I am not yet used to. One of my favourites was sliced lotus roots (an important New Year dish) with karashi (a kind of paste, "hot" in the same way as wasabi - the green paste used with sushi) in the holes. At first it was just delicious, but I guess the karashi grows stronger with time, because after a few days it was getting really "hot". In the following week or so we also had o-zouni, which is a kind of soup with (among other things) mochi in it. It is a bit difficult to eat at first, but after a while I got the hang of how to eat it, and after a few days I got used to the flavour too.

In the evening of January 2nd Emma and I went to her friend Noe's family's house. There we were treated to a lot of delicious food like giant crab and giant shrimp. I also tried fugu for the first time. You may have heard of fugu as the blowfish that you need a certificate to cook because part of the fish is very poisonous. I remember hearing that you could die within hours if you happen to eat some poison, but Emma doesn't seem to think it is anything especially dangerous about it. I wonder if it is because she is used to eating fugu or if the poison really isn't lethal at all. Anyway, Fukuoka is famous for fugu and it probably is a lot cheaper here than in other parts of Japan, but it is still very expensive and I was really lucky to get the chance to eat some. I can't say I liked it, but I can't say I didn't either. The taste is very plain, something my taste buds register as no taste. In Japanese food culture the taste of the raw materials is very important. If you add strong spices you no longer can feel the true taste of the food. The use of spices is used rather to accentuate the original flavour. But in Sweden we use spices like salt and pepper generously, and plain taste is not appreciated. The expression tasteless reflects this quite well; nothing, of course, completely lacks taste, but if the taste is not strong enough it is considered to be tasteless. Anyway, a teacher in Sapporo said that even among Japanese there are many who cannot appreciate the taste, so I guess it isn't that strange that I couldn't. It seems to be a dish that you have to learn to like. Emma referred to it as adult's food.
There was also smoked chicken and ham, and mustard to put on it. I had brought Swedish Christmas knäckebröd and putting the ham and mustard on it made me think of the Christmas ham. Since we didn't eat that on Christmas I was really happy to taste it. Later I was treated to an Okinawan liquor called awa-mori. It tasted similar to sake. After that we had tea and cake, and then it was time for magic... Noe's father brought out a card deck and some magic coins and started a little show. It was great fun. In fact, it was so fun I forgot to take any photos at all.

A few days later we went in to Fukuoka city together with Mari. It was really fine weather. First we went for some pasta and then we went for some shopping. I went to a huge used-manga-store (Mandarake). After walking around a long while checking all kinds of unbelievable character goods and paintings and stuff I bought a bunch of manga and went to meet Emma and Mari at a café. Among the manga I bought is an interesting series about the history of Japan from the very beginning up until modern times. There are a total of 55 books but I only bought the first two books. After a cup of coffee at the café Mari and we went separate ways, and we went to meet Mayuko, Mouri and Emma's Malaysian friend Nicki who stopped by in Fukuoka for a few days before going to Nagoya for studies. Emma met her when she went to Malaysia with Mouri last year. We went to a cosy restaurant for food and drinks and then continued to a Karaoke place. Mayuko turned out to be a really good singer. After that Emma and I went home to Nakama. The next day Mouri and Nicki came to visit. Nicki cooked a tasty Malaysian dish for all of us. Later on we went in to Fukuoka to stroll around in Canal City. By the canal there was a clothes-changing magician performing a strange show. After some shopping we took Nicki to the airport and then went home.

In the evening a few days later Emma and I went with her father to a golf hitting range. At these places you stand and shoot golf balls into a wide grass field with different places marked. Every time you hit the ball a new one pops up, and so you an stand and practice your swing for hours. When Emma's father hit the balls went straight forward like rockets (except for when he went for the close markings of course), but when I tried the balls kept curving to the right. Like with so much else, when watching golf on tv it looks so simple - you just hit the ball - but there are so many things like balance and movement to think about, and when thinking about it all hitting the ball gets really difficult. I got so confused that I forgot to think about the weight of the club; my left hand got bent backwards until it made a sound and it hurt a bit. I thought it wasn't that bad, but after we got home it started to swell and hurt. The throbbing pain even held me up all night. Golf is a dangerous sport...

The following Saturday we went to Noe's family's house again, and this time I remembered to take photos. Last time we were there we talked about Jansson's Temptation and Swedish meatballs and they really wanted to taste it, so this time we brought the ingredients to make it. Unfortunately we had no Swedish anchovies left so we had to buy Japanese anchovies. The anchovy sauce tasted a bit different and because of that the taste of the Jansson's Temptation wasn't as good as it is supposed to be, but it was still really tasty. The great thing with making Jansson's Temptation at Noe's house was that they had a fairly large oven (with adjustable temperature unlike the Japanese kitchen standard toaster-ovens or fish-grills). Not as large as the average Swedish oven, but large enough to fit a pie or the like. After putting the Jansson's Temptation in the oven we started with the meatballs. After making half of them the others decided to put curry in the rest. They tasted better than I would have guessed. We brought knäckebröd this time too, and again ate it with mustard and ham. We also brought snaps. It was just as fun as the previous time.

This was the first time I spent winter in a place without snow or ice, and it was very interesting. In Sweden the plants and trees drop their leaves in fall, and in winter there is nothing but bare branches (except on the pines) and snow, but here there are leaves on the trees and even winter flowers. Here are some of the winter flowers at Emma's house.