Week in photos #9 – Japanese New Years

I started the week off with a trip to one of my favourite ramen shops followed by a trip to Donki, I was in search of Gudetama goods. The particular Donki we went to has piano stairs, however I think only me and Ksk are ever interested in that. Everyone else just seems to walks up the stairs completely unfazed.

After I had done my errands for the day, Ksk and I headed to Gunma to celebrate New Years with Ksk’s family.

New Years in Japan is a public holiday and is typically spent with family, much like how Christmas is in the UK. A lot of people have this week off (myself included) and they travel back to their hometowns. Children receive Otoshidama, which are envelopes filled with money.

Tuesday we woke up early and took Miumiu for a walk, she loves walks, the mere mention of the word and she becomes so happy. She is adorable, I often think about how I can smuggle her back to Tokyo. The rest of the day was spent picking up supplies for the holidays, as the shops close for New Years.

New Year’s Eve was spent at Ksk’s sister’s place, where we had a nabe party, ate lots cheese and drank more than I usually drink. We also watched Kohaku which is a competiton between red (women) and white (men). Yeah not a fan of gender competition but, whatever. Anyway I realised Kohaku is essentially Japanese Eurovision without the hilarious commentary, but myself and my sister-in-law’s husband made up for that. It was hilarious.

New Year’s Day was such a lazy day, we ate Japanese New years food; Osechi, Ozoni and also winter food; oden and watched random TV.

On Friday Ksk and I had our first Starbucks of the year, we had intended to go sale shopping but there was just no car parking spaces anywhere, so we gave up and got coffee instead. We found a drive-thru Starbucks, which is the first one I’ve seen. In the evening we meet up with the family for a delicious meal at an Italian restaurant. The cheese alone was enough to tweet about, sooooo amazing!!!!!!

Saturday, Ksk and I went with his sister, her husband and their dog; Eddy to the dog park! I honestly didn’t know what to expect before we went but it was actually really fun. The dog park was in the Gunma mountains, where it was absolutely freezing.

You can bring your own dog or you can play with the dogs they have there. Ksk and I couldn’t bring Miumiu, but we bought some treats and met the dogs they had there. I feel in love with the most adorable Pomeranian. A lot of the dogs where very greedy and badly behaved but this pomarainian was so well behaved. Afterwards we went to a Brazilian supermarket for essentials ( giant jar of olives and Pão de queijo) and headed back to Tokyo.

And finally Sunday was spent wondering around Shibuya, doing a bit of sale shopping. I didn’t really pick up much to be honest, as there wasn’t much I liked.

Did you have a good New Years? What did you do?

Thank you for reading,

Alanna

#culture #Japan #weekinphotos