How do we celebrate New Year in Japan?

Many people in Japan go to a shrine on January 1st because it is New Year's Day. This is when we celebrate New Year's Day, which is one of the most important celebrations of the year.

Osechi

On New Year's Day, everyone eats traditional food with their families. We always invite our grandparents 
to dinner for Japanese food. We usually eat 'osechi', which is a famous traditional variety of hot and cold delicacies. 'Osechi' has many dishes, like 'konbu', which means celebration, 'Kuroname' which means being able to live diligently and other things.

On the day, grandparents and relatives give money to me and my brother and sister. We watch 'Kohaku Utagassen', when many singers sing their songs on TV. We watch as a family in our grandparent's house, which is in Aomori. New Year's Day is fun, but it's important  to meet and talk with grandparents and relatives. The day makes us enjoy the new year. All in all, it's a wonderful day and a great time for our family.

Posted for Hikari

Festivals around Japan - nationwide by Rukiya

Ruikya's after reading "Festival around the World" poster

Postcard from...Aomori, Japan

I'm watching a Tachineputa festival in Goshogawara city in Aomori prefecture. The Tachineputa is very big. It's 23 meters high and its weight is 19 tons. About 70 people parade through the central city pull a Tachineputa with musical accompaniment.

Reiko

Another roadtrip

Last weekend was another busy one, as Tana's posting below also mentions.

King's Road English School in Tokyo was the venue for Cambridge ESOL KET & PET examinations on Saturday, and I need to thank Trevor for his professional approach to this important event for us. Hokuriku Gakuin University in Kanazawa also had KET & PET exams on the same day - their first Lower Main Suite session so an exciting, newsworthy event. Gavin & Sakiko were suitably nervous & well-prepared; candidates looked a bit nervous!

I drove over to help the school cope with their first time, but also to be one of the two oral examiners along with Maureen, who trained up earlier this month in Sapporo. Afterwards we were able to relax with a couple of staff, which was nice but frustrating - surrounded by inviting Scotch whisky and unable to partake - I hade to drive to Sendai that night!

OK, so I slept in the car near Niigata...Sunday I met a lot of interesting folks from Sendai itself, Miyagi, Yamagata and Aomori prefectures, plus my performing friends Kaj & Kevin, who you can see on the right here. Kevin is the best presenter I know, and you'll notice he is also a fan of the Reading/Story Tree which we use at Luna. One day we'll get him to come up here...I also met a Canadian lady who shares my surname, which is very unusual - especially in Japan. Maybe we're related?

I hope our KET & PET candidates all enjoyed their exams (?!) and that they are satisfied with their results when they come. Thanks to our OEs & invigilators, and hopefully next year we will have a few new venues around the country for more candiates to take the exams conveniently. Here's hoping - it won't be for lack of trying!

1,500km

On Saturday (June 9th) I travelled all the way to Aomori & back, to examine some children. Jon Adams also made the trip, as we were due to OE KET as well as YLE. I was very glad for the company, as it was a looooong day of fast trains & platform-dashes. Think this doubled my shinkansen experience!

I left home before 5 to pick up Jon, then drove over to Ueda as dawn broke, to catch the first train to Omiya. From there, we whistled north through Sendai to Hachinohe at breakneck speed, before slowing down on the limited express to Misawa. Neither of us are still sure where we were exactly, because it was foggy. We could hear jets landing & taking off from the nearby US airbase, and we quickly learned that the first Trans-Pacific flight took off from here (the beach, as a matter of fact) to land near Seattle in the US. 1931 sound right?

We were met off the train by Sophie, who despite being French had the most lovely Middlesex accent! Speaking to Europeans - haven't done that for years! Next we were introduced to the staff at the school, and nobody was sure which language to use. They all realised my French was even worse than my Japanese, so everyone gallantly engaged us in English. Thank you beaucoups!

The children themselves were sweet, and in their way quite different to Japanese candidates that I'm used to examining. You kind of get used to the same answers for certain questions, so today was the unexpected ones (eg not "fish & miso" for breakfast). French accents, French words instead of English ones, French shrugs instead of Japanese head-tilting, fair hair & blue/grey/green eyes. All very different, and very rewarding.

And too soon back to the station & a zoom back across half of Japan. We wanted to get to know Sophie, and hear about her adventures in Greece. We wanted to know about Yann's multi-cultural background - Brazil, Gabon, Mauritius etc, and his martial arts. Really interesting people, but we couldn't hang around...and we'll not meet them again because the school is closing. We finally figured out why there was a French community there - the nuclear reprocessing plant is a French design.

A Grand Day Out, as Wallace & Gromitt would agree. Bon voyage mes amies!