🎍New Year's celebration in Japan🎍 〜日本のお正月〜 Japan Vlog | easy Japanese home cooking recipe

Welcome to Taiji's Kitchen. Today I'm going to show you how we spend the New Year's in Japan. As you can see this is not my regular house where I live in Germany. Instead I'm back in Japan for the holidays and I thought it might be interesting to show you guys how we spend the New Year's in Japan because we spend it very differently than the rest of the world and there are a lot of traditional things and a lot of it has meanings behind it so I'm not going to be able to show and explain everything what's behind that and so on so this is going to be like a sneak peek of So there are a lot of aspects to how we spend the New Year's. The first thing we do is the osouji which means big cleanup so we clean up the whole house. So osouji is also something that we do not only in our houses but also in companies or in schools where on the last day of work or last day of school they clean up the whole building or in schools like their classroom or like the big hall and whatnot. This is kind of our tradition so that we can go into the New Year with a clean slate so we clean up the whole house. A lot of the things that we usually don't do and there are a couple things we do special for the evening of the last day and then we go into the New Year. A lot of people go see the Hatsumode which is the first sunrise and then we have our very special breakfast which is called osechi ryori. It's kind of like a bento box but really gorgeous with a lot of variation and after eating breakfast we often go to the shrine and we call this Hatsumode which is the first visit of the shrine and then pray for the health of the whole year and there are also other aspects that you get to see. Then let's get started. Now we're gonna put up the New Year's decorations. These are called shimenawa so you might have seen something similar in the Japanese shrines. What they symbolize is that they purify the area and protect demons or any bad luck or any bad things that may come into that area. So in our case it would protect our house from anything bad coming in. So we're gonna hang it there and then secondly so we have these. These are called kalamatsu. You might have seen these in the emoji and wonder what they were and so these are the New Year's decoration. So kalamatsu consists of three things, three bamboos, pine tree and plum flower. So the bamboo represent the fast growth because the bamboos grow really fast and the pine tree is there because the word for pines in Japanese is matsu and matsu sounds similar to matsuru which means to praise. So it's supposed to praise the gods and the plum flowers are the only flowers that bloom at this season. So it just kind of symbolize the joy I think. We're gonna put these up in the front of house to show the gods that we live here. We traditionally put these on the front on the entrance on both sides like this. Now we're going to make the mochi and this mochi is not the mochi you might know with the filling but instead this is the actual mochi. So they kind of look like this and traditionally we use this kind of tool to pound the mochi rice but nowadays they're like this kind of mochi maker where you can make the mochi very easily at home. So this mochi maker has two functions, one to steam the rice and then next pound the rice. We're going to first put in the water, perfect, and then put in this bowl. This is going to turn and surprisingly this fin is enough to pound the mochi. I don't know how it works but that's the Japanese technology. I'm gonna put in here and then we're gonna put in the rice here. We're gonna put the lid on and then turn on the steam function. We're gonna let it steam and it's probably gonna take about like 15 minutes or so. So this is finished steaming. I'm gonna take off the lid and then I'm gonna turn on the pounding function. This might be interesting to watch how the rice is gonna get pounded. So this is finished on a cutting board. I'm gonna put some mochiko and then you have a beautiful mochi. This is what we refer to in Japan as mochi and not what you might know as mochi with a filling. So it's been about half an hour. This has been cooled off. I'm gonna cut these into bite-sized pieces. So as this hardens it's much easier to cut off. So now these are cut up and you can store this in the fridge for about a week or so or you can also put in a freezer and you can save it up for a couple months. So this is finished for mochi making. So this is a very typical way to spend a new year's evening. This is a tv show called which means red white song battle and this is a tv show that plays every year in the last day to just kind of look back on the year what songs were popular of that year. This is our way of spending the last day of the year quietly. So right before the year changes it's our tradition to eat soba noodle. It's called it's just kind of to wish that we live long like the soba noodle. And also another thing that we do in Japan is that right before the year changes they hit these big massive bell. Each temple usually have this kind of really big bell and they hit these bells exactly 108 times. In buddhist tradition they say that there are 108 bad thoughts of humankind. They hit these bells 108 times to wash away these so that we can start the new year fresh. So the year has changed. Happy new year. I hope you continue to enjoy the videos that I make this year as well. Okay let's go see the Hatsuhinode. So the reason why a lot of Japanese people go see Hatsuhinode and the reason why I do it is because in our religion Shintoism the main god is the sun god. That comes from the fact that Japan is an agricultural land and of course in farming sun is the main part and a lot of people even go climb up the high mountains to see a really good view of the sunrise. Today I'm not going to go climb up a mountain but we're going to go to a hilltop near our house and see the sunrise there. These are daikon namasu. These are pickled daikon radish. These are kuromame. These are black soybeans cooked in a sweet sauce. So the first layer is finished. We try to put in all the vegetable dish in there. These are tatsukuri, flavored small dried sardines. Kurikinton, sweetly cooked chestnuts. And these are kamaboko. They're made of fish paste or sometimes they're called surimi. And then we have the avalon. And then we have matsumaizuke. These are made from dried squid, kombu kelp, and carrots. And then we have my best favorite, kazunoko. These are herring eggs marinated in soy sauce. And here in the second layer we try to have the seafood. And then we have the chicken meatballs. And then lastly we have musubi konnyaku. Konnyaku is a Japanese yam. These are also cooked in soy sauce based soup. And this is finished osechi ryori. So to the osechi ryori we also eat what's called ozoni. Ozoni is a soup with mochi inside. And of course these mochi are not with the filling but the mochi that we made yesterday. So in a bowl we're going to put in some mochi. These are grilled mochi. And then we're going to heat up the soup again. And then we're going to pour in here in these bowls. So in different regions they have different kind of soup. Some regions have miso soup for this. Some have with beans in them. So the flavor is very different and what comes inside is also very different. And this is kind of our family version with shiitake mushroom and chicken meat inside. Very simple. And then at the end we're going to put in a little bit of mitsuba. These are kind of like Japanese crescent or parsley. And then these are finished. So this is how the Japanese new year's breakfast looks like. Let's eat. So this looks delicious. So I'm looking forward to this the whole year because we eat this only on the first three days of the year. And these are just delicious. And to that we drink also otoso. These are special spiced sake. Itadakimasu. It has like a really really fine aroma. Sweetness from the spices. I don't know exactly what's in there but it's got really good kick to it. Oh I love this. Kazunoko is my favorite. These are herring eggs. You can hear that really this crunchiness. Really good. And abalone with its liver. Oh this liver is really delicious. I also love this namasu. Pickled daikon radish. Really delicious. The matsumaizuke is also my favorite. So Japanese dish they tend to have really variety of the flavor. This is soy sauce based. This is sweet. This is sour. This is also soy sauce based but they all kind of vary in their flavor. You never get bored from one to the other. Let's drink the ozoni. So there is this mochi inside. It's kind of gooey in a good way of course. Itadakimasu. Excuse me for the slurping. That is the first visit to the shrine. In Japan we don't do the green cards in the Christmas but instead we do for the New Year's. Here says kingashine means happy new year. And then we usually have the symbol of the zodiac and this year is the year of the ox. So you have here the ox. Here's another nengajo. Some nengajo are very cute like this or rather traditional like this or with mount fuji. Also another cute ox with the mount fuji. Also some cool design kind of like ukiyo-e like these or these and something like this as well. Some are very simple like this. Some people just do a family photo. So this is a very typical New Year's lunch. So here I have the mochi that we made yesterday. So we kind of toasted the mochi like this and then there are different ways to eat mochi. So a very typical way is what's called isobemaki. So you have a nori and then we eat it with just soy sauce and then just kind of dip it in soy sauce and then and we wrap it in nori paper. It's very simple, very savory. And then another way is here I have grated daikon radish and then with soy sauce again. This is called mizore mochi. This is also good. So it's got the freshness from the daikon radish. Also very good. And then lastly we have here kinako with sugar. Kinako is a roasted soybean flour and then what we do is that we have this toasted mochi. We dip it in hot water and then put it over the kinako with sugar and then just coat it with kinako. This is also a great dessert like this. It's got really the rich flavor of the soybeans and then there's a little bit of smoky flavor because it was roasted. Very good. So mochi is something we usually eat in the winter in January. Of course you can eat it all year round but typically we eat that in the new years. That was really delicious. I hope this video kind of gave you new ideas about Japanese culture, the Japanese new years especially. If you ever come to Japan in new years please enjoy these different variation of tradition. If you like what you saw please give me that thumbs up and I look forward to seeing you in the next video. Bye!