Last day of 2005

I can't believe 2005 is almost over. This year has just flown by. I went to the store earlier to pick up some special food for tomorrow (called osechi). On the way to the supermarket, I didn't see anybody - Tokyo is empty! It is weird. Of course once I got to the store, I found out where they all were ... inside shopping! It was nuts. The stores all close for a few days so I guess everyone was stocking up.

We bought a bunch of different New Year's foods to eat tomorrow. I also picked up some tempura (lightly fried things) to put in our soba tonight. Soba (buckwheat noodles) are eaten in Japan on New Year's Eve. The tempura was basically a bunch of veggies formed into a circle - a common soba topping.

After getting all the groceries home I cooked up the soba. We also had some sashimi - the tuna we bought was delicious, although it didn't look that nice. I have never cut sashimi (raw fish) before (you buy it in a block). I understand why many people do it when it is frozen now. Tuna is very mushy, and just by holding it, you squash it. So my pieces didn't look that nice. Oh well, they tasted good!

Then we watched K1 fighting on tv. Not that exciting. I actually fell asleep. Apparently this is one of the most popular ways to pass the New Year in Japan (watching K1 not sleeping). We had planned on going to Milenario, a big light display up at Tokyo station, but the lights were on from 12 - 3 am, and we just couldn't bring ourselves to go out in the cold at that hour. So our New Year's was very uneventful!

Good bye 2005!