10nineteen

こんばんは。Or maybe おはようございます？

Happy New Year! I’m writing this very early in the morning… the first day of 2018! But this post is about the last day of 2017, so let’s go back a bit. 😀

First of all, today is super-cold. Below freezing. In fact, we had snow here this evening! And like a crazy person, I was outside barbequing burgers for lunch. But anyway, on to the new year’s activities.

Dinner was a traditional dish of soba with tempura. The long soba noodles symbolize long life, so there’s that bit of consideration… I like that, but I like even more that the noodles and tempura are tasty treats!

After dinner, Koa went off to a friends house to party, while Mariko, Bay, and I relaxed at home and watched Kouhaku Uta Gassen as is our tradition. And of course drink saké. 🍶

The show was pretty good, with some fun and interesting performances, some snoozers, and lots of silly comedy. Some of the standouts for me were:

• Perfume – Cool roof-top performance with synchronized city lights
• Takehara Pistol – Heartfelt and powerful voice
• TWICE – Multi-cultural girl group with great dancing and singing
• Ringo Sheena – Eccentric and cool as always
• Sandaime J Soul Brothers – Best dance skills of the evening
• Shishamo – I love them; great band
• Kuraki Mai – She still has a fantastic voice
• Oka Midori – My favorite enka tune this year
• Matsu Takako – Nice version of Warotenka’s theme song

After ringing in the new year, we are usually kind of hungry and we usually make a food-run for tacos or burgers, but everything seemed to be closed. Plus with icy roads it was better to stay inside. So we broke out the Jamiacan patties to satisfy our late-night munchies. Yum!

It was a nice day and a truly happy new year!

おやすみ！