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明けましておめでとうございます！

Happy New Year!

Japanese New Year is a lot different to Australian New Year. It's a lot more quieter and family-oriented, and although I missed the atmosphere of the Australian summer and fireworks and going out with my friends, I liked the Japanese New Year.

On the 30th, I went to my Rotary Counsellor's house to join him and his family in "mochi-tsuki", which is the Japanese New Year tradition of making mochi (rice cake). It's made by thumping rice with this big wooden hammer until it turns into a sticky rice dough. Then it's broken up and moulded into balls, usually with "anko" (sweet bean paste) inside it. It's very tasty but filling too - one little ball of mochi is the equivalent of a bowl of rice, so you have to be careful!

Outside the mochi making room, there was a little snow slope that they'd built in my Counsellor's backyard, so I played with the kids and slid down that, as well as snowball fights and making snow men. It was really fun. Afterwards, I went to Miyu's house to join the other exchange students in more mochi-tsuki, but by the time I got there they'd finished, so we just hung out instead.

On New Years Eve, I didn't do anything during the day. For dinner we had a big feast of Japanese food, beer and sake. Then we all waited around - I skyped my parents because the Australian New Year was 2 hours before the Japanese New Year, so I wasn't quite sure when to call it a new year....

But anyway, at 11:30pm we got picked up by the mother of Chiharu's friend, and went to a shrine to ring the bell and stuff. It was a quiet occasion, and the bell was really loud - it echoed all around. It was cold, but no snow was falling and there was no wind, so it was pretty pleasant.

We also got free sake! Yeahhh! Nah, it's another tradition I think. We also went to a second shrine where we read our fortunes; I couldn't read all the kanji in mine, but I showed it to my host sister and she said I got some of the best things lol. So let's hope that 2011 reflects that.

This morning I skyped my family again, and I'm really excited to be going home in 2 weeks. I can't believe it's so soon. I'll miss it here but I can't wait to get back into my Australian life. I think 2011 is going to be a defining year for me.