Bye JAN

Can’t believe today is the last day of Jan,  such a freezing day. 

My 2014 ended with work, 2015 started with work too.2015 has been treating me well so far. How about you?
It’s happy to work with people with positive attitude, they always bring positive energy to the coworker, learned something valuable from the obasan in the same workplace though it just a temporary work. I deemed it as a good start to the new year.
This year I was able to grab a fukubukuro (lucky bag) for myself. On the hatsuuri day(first business of the year), I bumped into some friends at train station early in the morning, it seems that we’re going to the same destination with the same purpose too (haha). There's so many people lining up and waiting for the shopping mall to open.

Sending negajyou (New year'card) to relatives and friends during new year is a custom in Japan. So, every year Japan’s post office releases many new design of postcard. If you happened to go to the post office in Japan during year end or the beginning of year, you can go there and have a look at the postcards with new year theme. It’s a lovely idea to provide different wooden stamp for the customer to decorate their postcards. Some stamps are with greeting message and some are with the Japanese zodiac animal of the year.

I have decorated my TN refill with the stamps too. It brings some new year ambiance to the first month of my schedule. 

During the new year holiday, I was invited by a Japanese to his house to celebrate new year with other foreigners. Despite living in Japan for few years, this is the first time I joined the new year party at a local people's home. They prepared some typical Japanese new year’s food for us such as kouhaku kamaboko (red and white fish cake), datemaki (steamed fish and eggrolled cake), kobumaki (rolled konbu kelp), kuromame (soft sweet black bean),kurikinton, mochi, etc.

Jan of 2015, a month of being surrounded by good people. Thankful.

 

Leeming