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Japan has such a ceremonial culture. Whatever it is, there's bound to be some traditional ceremony that's involved. It's just one of the few things that really define how strong the community culture is in this country.

Today, in our little neighbourhood there was a Mochi-Maki (餅まき) or Rice Cake Scattering/Throwing Ceremony. It's an old lucky tradition that's done to bless the opening of a new building or property. In this case it was a house across the road from us. The whole neighbourhood was invited to partake in catching the bundles of dried glutinous rice balls. The new residents of a family of four rained down the bags of mochi from the second floor of their almost built new home. And everyone young and old did not hesitate push and shove each other to get us much as they can. They were all like little kids fighting over piñata goodies. My wife was one of the lucky ones to catch mochi with a money prize imbedded in it. Yey lucky us… but choking on that huge 500 yen coin wouldn't be so lucky.

Thank you and welcome to the neighbourhood.

"Do you know what happens when you complain too much about the cold? The Winter-God will unleash his wrath upon all of the winter world, and slice your belly open with his icicle claws when you're sleeping."

Well that's the kind of story my wife tells me… to stop me from whinging about the cold. Pssh whatever right… lame Japanese horror stories.

That was until today while I was shovelling more snow around the house. I couldn't help feeling a little bit of a nervous shiver up my spine when I saw this icicle formation on one of the garden trees…

Uhhmmm… I love winter and the freezing cold! it's the best season ever! Summer sucks! Snow rocks!

-SLAM-HOWL-SHUDDER-

Who's that?

It's been another snowy and icicle freezing day. Need to fuel up on some steaming hot food. Enter the udon, うどん!

But this place, called Marugame Seimen, that we went to today, is unlike any other style of udon restaurant I've ever been to. There's an open kitchen in the centre, like a sushi train place, but you line up along a bench and load up your tray like a school cafeteria. It's pretty cool. Gourmet food with a down to earth, self-service, blue collar feel to it.

Read all about them here:
www.toridoll.com/en/index.html

Well no use complaining about it… just gotta get out there and clear it all off again. Otherwise, my students will have no where to park today.

The snow this year hasn't been as bad as last year so far, but there's been enough to give me a regular workout. And by the looks of the forecast for the next week or so, I think I'm gonna have Arnie man-boobs to show off in the summer. Hehehe… they're real and they're spectacular!

No I'm not playing "Infinity Blade" on this cold and snowy Monday… I'm actually doing my Japanese studies. I'm serious. Very serious about making my study skills more efficient. With a good roundhouse kick in the pants to keep myself consistant. A bit like my Project 365 blog - in daily bite sized chunks.

I've been using the iKnow online course (iknow.jp) for a about a year now and it's really helped a lot with my vocab… though not much else. So I'd decided to get back into my textbooks (as dry and boring as they are) that was until last night's epiphany. I'm gonna keep using my gadgets for most of my self studies with the help of Textfugu (textfugu.com). It's esentially a beginner's Japanese course online. A textbook without the book… hence Textfugu.

Hopefully by this time next year my Nihongo won't be as embarrasing as it now. Ganbarimasu!