My winter break has been slow at times, but I'm keeping myself entertained. Apparently the emperor's birthday is a holiday, and the palace grounds are opened up only on this specific day (the 21st, I think...). Soooo I got up early and headed to the palace near Tokyo station with my friend. We recieved cool little Japanse flags and stood in line with all of the elderly Japanese people so we could go see the emperor give a 2 minute speech. It was interesting though, even when the little old Japanese lady behind me kept hitting me in the head with her flag (on purpose I think).



Christmas was uneventful... and lonely....
I wiped out jogging the day before Christmas and scraped my face on the asphalt and screwed up my knee... it was awesome. Then I went to the "lonely single people" Christmas nomikai for kendo, as Japanese people usually celebrate Christmas only amongst couples. On Christmas I spent most of the day wallowing in self-pity alone in my house until my host mom took me out for Thai food, which was delicious... it reminded me a little bit of a Christmas story, that scene where they go out for Chinese food... only different.



For new years it's custom in Japan to make mochi (sticky sweets made from pounded rice), and I was disappointed to find out that my family really doesn't do it. But I actually did get to make mochi at a couple different places... one was with my host mom and dad at our neighbor's house. Our neighbor and her husband and her friend had us over and we got to make mochi, which was fun. We then drank lots of sake and wine, as is custom at any Japanese party, and my host mom embarassed me by mentioning to our neighbor's 28 year old son that I was single and desperately need a boyfriend, as usual.




The following day I went to this random house with a group of American friends which I expected to be a small gathering, but which was in fact a giant mochi-making New Years party with like 50 Japanese guests. We got to try pounding mochi the traditional way, with a giant mallet, which was really fun. We interacted with the drunk old Japanese guys, who can definitely be creepy at times, but it was fun and I'm glad I got to experience it.