Flour Paradise.

You may want to think about Wheat Free Diet.

But not today.

We had a big new year's party last night at local Benihana-type steak house.

It's supposed the shef is standing behind the plate but we did everything by ourself.So it was like we reserved whole restaurant including the kitchen.

Because we wanted to do something a regular steak house don't do.

We wanted to make Japanese-type pizza called "Okonomi-yaki."

"Okonomi" means anything you want and "yaki" means grilling or baking.

There's a guy who works at the steat house.When we made a plan to have a big Okonomi-yaki party,we started negotiating to him to use the plate at the steak house because we needed big enough plate for 17 people.

Everybody made own one by ourselves.

The party was so successful! Okonomi-yaki was delicious. The owner of the steak house gave us super delicious beef for free!

We were stuffed. We drunk a lot,laughed a lot...

Just today,let us forget about diet.Let us be in a flour paradise for awhile.

Auspicious!

We visit the Shinto shrine on New Year's Day.
It's called "Hatsumoude". It's the first visit paid on the New Year's holidays to a shrine. People pray for a long life and happiness for the year.

I bought a fortune paper called "Omikuji" after pray. It's frotune written on slips of paper.People buy then at shrines and tie them onto the branches of nearby trees in hopes that a good frtune will come true or that a bad frtune will be kept away.

My result was Best Fortune!
I decided to keep it instead of tying it to the tree.

A New Year.

A Happy New Year!
I wish we all will be filled with a lot of joy,laughs, and love in 2012.

I've got some new year's greeting cards from my friends on New Year's Day.
It's a Japanese custom to send greeting cards on New Year's Day to friends,business acquaintances and customers to wish them a happy. This custom is similar to the Weastern practice of sending Christmas cards.

It's supposed to drop those cards by the end of December but I had no time to do.
I wrote the cards on New Year's Day.

When I saw the cards I've got,those looked same to me because those are printed (typed) even addressing side. It is not interesting. The greeting cards were handwritten long time ago but many people choose to type it these days.

I decided to wrtie the cards by Japanese calligraphy brush,handwriting like old people did. It's been long since I used the brush last time.
It wasn't easy to handle the brush.You need to concentrate your attention on the brush and card.I thought that was like Zen.

My handwritung was not good at all but I felt pretty good.
You know,taking some concentrated time then thnking about friends,then write the cards cafefully.
I guess it is not bad to have this event at least once a year to stay away from busy life just for awhile.