Happy New Years!

Happy Year of the Horse!

The Japanese New Year celebration, Oshugatsu, is the biggest holiday in Japan. The New Year celebration often lasts an entire week somewhere around December 28th-January 6th. Leading up to New Year’s Eve, all the Japanese housewives spend their time "osoji" (cleaning) as part of the Oshogatsu ritual—a Japanese equivalent of “spring cleaning.”  The Japanese believe this is a good time to “purify” one’s environment—allowing for a fresh start for the coming twelve months. After cleaning is completed then it is on to cooking large amounts of food that can be easily stored for the Japanese housewives. The intention behind this custom is that once January 1st comes everyone can rest for 3 days. I asked a lady at church if she was getting ready for the new year and she just moaned.  I might have to agree with her- it sounds exhausting!

Celebrating the new year in Japan also means paying special attention to the first time something is done in the new year. Hatsuhinode is the first sunrise of the year. Before sunrise on January 1, people often drive to the coast or climb a mountain so that they can see the first sunrise of the new year. Many people in Hiroshima drive or hike up to the silver peace pagoda on the top of Mt. Futaba-yama. 

 

View of Hiroshima from Mt. Futaba-yama (thanks to ja.japantourist.jp- since we were too lazy!)

Hatsumōde is the first trip to a shrine or temple.

Many people visit a shrine after midnight on December 31 or sometime during the day on January 1. If the weather is good, people often dress up or wear kimonos. Since we have small children we skipped seeing the first sunrise but did venture out to Hiroshima Gokoku Jinja Shrine next to the Hiroshima Castle. As you can tell it was very busy! We ventured out with our expat friends and had a good time sampling the food booths as we waiting in line to enter the shrine, toured the grounds of the Hiroshima Castle, and enjoying the decorated shrine.

 Our friends, The Gepford family waiting patiently!

 

Here is a picture of our decorated lobby. In the middle is the traditional kagami-mochi decoration, 2 mochi (boiled rice cakes) stacked with a tangerine on top. You will also see kadomatsu decorations everywhere too. Our apartment complex had a picture of one posted, but every department store, train station, school, sometimes even 7-elevens had real ones placed out in front of their buildings.

Kadomatsu Decoration



Pacific War Museum

Part of our time on Guam we visited the Pacific War Museum. It was a fantastic little museum with actual military vehicles used during WWII on the island and displays on Guam's role in WWII. All of it was of particular interest to myself since my Grandpa Minick served on a submarine in WWII in that part of the Pacific Ocean.  Here are some pictures and little bit of history.

 

 

 The United States took control of Guam in the 1898 Spanish-American War, as part of the Treaty of Paris. Guam came to serve as a station for American ships traveling to and from the Philippines from that time forth. During World War II, Guam was attacked and invaded by the armed forces of Japan on December 8, 1941. This is the same day that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor (Japan is a day ahead in time of Hawaii and mainland United States). The attacks were intended as a preventive action in order to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions the Empire of Japan was planning in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. There were simultaneous Japanese attacks on the U.S.-held Philippines and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

 

Guam's Japanese occupation lasted for approximately thirty-one months.  Approximately one thousand people died during the occupation, according to Congressional Testimony in 2004. Some historians estimate that war violence killed 10% of Guam's some 20,000 population.

The United States returned and fought the Battle of Guam on July 21, 1944, to recapture the island from Japanese military occupation. More than 18,000 Japanese were killed as only 485 surrendered. Sergeant Shoichi Yokoi, who surrendered in January 1972, appears to have been the last confirmed Japanese holdout in Guam

 

One of the most fascinating displays was about a Japanese soldier who hid for 28 years in the central part of the island in the jungle instead of surrendering. Sergeant Yokoi went into hiding during the Battle of Guam in 1944 and was found in January of 1972. He hid in an underground jungle cave, fearing to come out of hiding even after finding leaflets declaring World War II had ended, believing them to be false Allied propaganda. Yokoi survived by hunting, primarily at night and using native plants to make clothes, bedding, and storage implements, which he carefully hid in his cave. After being found by 2 local men he returned to Japan and continued to live another 25 years until he died in 1997.

This is a picture of him receiving his first haircut in 28 years. (Picture taken from Wikipedia.org)

Christmas

Ever wanted to travel to a tropical island for the holidays? You look at the pictures of white sand beaches, blue waters, and lots of sunshine from your home in the midst the cold, gray, snowy, rainy winter months and think someday....!! Well, we actually made our "someday dream" come true this year. For Christmas we headed down to the island of Guam and spent 4 days soaking in the sunshine and enjoying 86F weather everyday. Guam is the largest and southernmost of the Mariana Islands. The island is an unincorporated territory of the United States in the Western Pacific Ocean.

Guam is only about a 3 1/2 hour flight from Hiroshima and with some unused United Airline miles leftover from the summer that were going to expire in January we were sold.

Everyone had a great time. The kids could not get enough of the ocean and the hotel's pool. We did a little bit of exploring the island but really spent most of the time in the water.

 

 

 View of the coast line of Tumon Bay from Two Lover's Point.

 

 

Luke and Cameron at the beach!

 

 The hotel we stayed at had an awesome pool facility with 2 waterslides, a winding river you could swim in, a children's pool, and 3 other pools. The kids spent every waking minute on the water slides. As always we had to take a picture of Cameron with his googles on- his favorite form of eye protection!

 

Turkey day, also known as Costco rotisserie chicken day

Obviously, Thanksgiving is an American holiday and not celebrated in Japan, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to celebrate it even if were are thousands of miles from the U.S.A. It feels good to say that 2013 was a good year for our family. I don't think we could have said the same for 2011 and 2012 due to Mike's health issues. But I am happy to report that for the first time in 2 years Mike was healthy and able to eat a real Thanksgiving dinner and that we were surrounded by many new loving and kind friends.

The expat community had to work on Thanksgiving, so we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Due to the small size of ovens in Japan we substituted Costco rotisserie chicken in for the turkey. We still had lots of yummy pies, rolls (even my pumpkin rolls), mashed potatoes, lots of kids, and football playing in the background. Thanks to the Gepford family, Stewart family, McMahan family, and Barnhart family for helping bring a little bit of America to our Japanese home. 

 

This is a side note, but I had to include a picture of the birthday cake that our home teachers brought me. In Japan I have to go by Lesli, since LesliAnn is too hard for the Japanese pronunciation. We have the kindest and most dedicated home teachers. Someday I will tell you about them. They are both amazing and each month we cherish their visits where they teach us all about the gospel and invite the spirit into our home.

 

 

Time to get blogging again!

It's time we give you an update! Even life here in Japan gets super hectic for the holidays. Most of the fall and December was a blur with holiday preparations, school parties, Mike traveling for work, and sick kids and parents.

Anyways, Happy New Year!!

This is the year of the horse according to the Japanese and Chinese new year calendar!

 

 I thought I would start with some pictures from our fall. Autumn doesn't really begin until mid-October and lasts until about early December. We enjoyed hiking in the mountains and viewing all the changing color of leaves. Below are some pictures from a gorge named Sandankyo Valley.

 

 Below are pictures taken on December 8th at a park by our house. Luke is still even wearing shorts!! Included is also a picture of Cameron's ever-growing independence and particular ways as a 2 year old! 

 

Halloween

 These are almost a month late in coming but life gets busy around the holidays even if you are not in the USA. In Japan Halloween is not an official holiday. The Japanese love Halloween and do big parties on the weekends in October but there is no trick or treating and no parties at school on Halloween. The international school held a Halloween party on November 1st this year and Julia and Luke were allowed to wear their costumes to school on that day. At first they were disappointed that nothing was taking place on October 31st. However, I told them that since Japan is a day ahead due to time differences  Halloween doesn't take place in Japan until it is Halloween in the USA. That seemed to make sense to all and luckily to my relief everyone was on board with that plan!!

 

Just for a special treat though we did let the kids dress up on Oct. 31st and we met up with the Gepford family at a local bakery and ate some yummy desserts.

The bakery is next door to a floral shop and the owner of the floral shop and her family were so excited to see our children dressed up that they had to have their picture taken with the kids in their costumes. The owner also quickly put together little treat bags so that the kids would receive a treat when they said  "trick or treat" to her family.

 

 Of all the kids though, Cameron was the most excited about his costume. When I pulled out the costumes the day before Halloween he found the Batman costume and went crazy. He wore it straight for 3 days. He slept in it, ate in it, and went everywhere in it! By the end of the school party he was exhausted from all the excitement!

Kyoto Part 2

On Sunday after attending church in Kyoto we visited the fushimi inari-taisha shrine which is famous for its orange buildings and miles of orange torii gates. The first picture is not one we took but from Free Stock Photo's website, but it gives you an idea of what torii gates are and how beautiful they are. The day we visited it was sunny and the sun illuminated the pathway.

 

 

Luke thought it was cooler to walk on the outside of the torii gate pathway. Goofy kid!!

 

We also visited the Nishi-Hongwan-ji Temple which is an UNESCO world heritage site and is the headquarters  of the Shin Buddhism in Japan.  We arrived right at dusk and closing time which was a bonus since we didn't have to tell the kids to stop running and be quiet all the time!!

 

 In Kyoto we stayed at a Rakuten, a traditional Japanese guesthouse. You can rent individual rooms where there is a tatami mat floor and you are given futons for each individual. It is kind of like camping just indoors with heat and air conditioning. It is definitely the best way to travel with children in Japan. Here is a picture of the receptionist at the rakuten.