I went to meet up with my friends at JunkAdelic in Nakameguro, and we had tasty Tex-Mex food and Frozen Mango Margaritas which were nice as always! I also had a cup of hot wine, which was a one for the road. I have to say that our conversation topics were quite similar to the old ladies in the sauna of my sports club. We talked about Horiemon, cosmetics, travelling... but we can also talk about DS Lite (in Japanese) and the new mobile phone by Naoto Fukasawa (in Japanese) so not too behind, hopefully.

These are herbs and spices from a German brand called Fuchs. I fell in love with the great graphics when I saw them for the first time at C's parents house! I bought them bit by bit every time I traveled to Germany and C's mother sent me some, so I have quite a collection now.

It keeps snowing! It hasn't snowed this much in Tokyo for eight years, and I slipped twice on the snowy pavement with my Converse All Stars. The word 'slipped' in Japanese could also mean 'failed an examination', so it is a taboo word for the 551,382 students who took university and college entrance exams today.

Today is Kagami-biraki, I took the Kagami-mochi (sticky rice cake New Year decoration) down. It's meant to be broken by hands or with a wooden hammer (not with a knife, because cutting has a negative meaning in Japanese), but the Kagami-mochi was so hard, looked like a dry heel, and I decided to use the microwave. It seemed much easier than using hands or a wooden hammer. Oh, I did use a knife to scrape off some mold on the Kagami-mochi. I guess it's allowed.

Yesterday morning (just before noon), I had Nanakusa-gayu (Rice porridge with seven different kinds of spring herbs) and I took off New Year's pine decorations 'kadomatsu (simple version)' from the front door. I've been keeping this old tradition every year since we moved to Tokyo. Unfortunately a suzushiro (Japanese white radish) in a handy seven herbs pack from the super market near the station, has almost gone off, but I made quite nice Nanakusa-gayu with a bit of white miso, and I enjoyed eating it with tasty umeboshi (pickled plum) which was from my sister.

Happy New Year! I've been just staying at home during holidays, but I was very busy. I guess it was because I decided to invite many of our friends for a traditional Japanese new years dinner. It was crazy but fun! I wish you all an exciting 2006.