On New Years' Eve, I took a small container of kimchi fried rice (김치볶음밥) and a sweet and slightly spicy Korean radish side dish (무생채) to the neighbors that gave us radish, spinach and cabbage a couple of weeks after we arrived (ref: Blessed Beyond Words) as a thank you. The radish side dish was actually made from the radish that he gave to us. While I was there giving it to them, the wife went in and brought out some homemade mochi that a neighbor had made and some expensive ham! They were trying to explain to me how I should heat the mochi and they ended up inviting me into their kitchen so she could show me. She was a bit perplexed when I told her that we didn't have a toaster oven, just a toaster. :) They asked if we'd ever tried "Osechi" (traditional Japanese New Years' food) and when I said no, they asked what time we usually have breakfast. After some discussion, the husband said that as the wife wasn't done preparing the New Years' food, that they would bring over some early the next day. Wow! I left very excited and amazed at what had just happened.
Sure enough, the next morning, on New Year's Day, they came over together with lots of yummy food! Click here (or "Osechi" above) to read more about the food we ate. We had no clue that each item represented something. We just ate. =D 
Our favorite was the black beans and chestnuts. It even had flakes of gold on it! I showed the picture to a Japanese friend and she said that only rich people put gold flakes on it. Another friend said that the size of the black bean was also a sign of prosperity. Bigger black beans are more expensive. Ours were pretty big! The hardest thing for us to eat was the hard fish eggs. I love fish eggs but these were very different. I really like the radish-carrot-yuzu (summer tangerine) one and have learned to make it but Peter doesn't like the yuzu flavor, which is what I think makes it so yummy. Also, you can't tell from the picture, but the cubes of white radish had tiny cubes sliced into one side of each cube. Sooo much time and effort went into that one dish! It was like eating art. The mochi was delicious! She'd just baked them and brought them over so we had to eat them quickly - crispy on the outside, soft and melted on the inside. The green powder was delicious too. Yummy!!!
Next year, we'll know better. This year, everything was a bit crazy and I didn't even read up on how Japanese celebrate the New Year until after. Maybe next year we'll even be able to visit a temple or make our own mochi? :)
For lunch, we had a traditional Korean New Years dish: rice cake soup "dduk gook", which I made for the first time. Wasn't too bad. :P Next time I'll prepare the stuff that goes on top the day before! Well, maybe next year it won't be so hard as the kids will be older. Oh! And as our neighbors were leaving, the wife told me that they really enjoyed the Korean food I took them the previous night. Yay! That made me so happy. :) Apparently she really likes spicy food. :)
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