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*It’s only my hand drawing without any draft or planning (LOL) but I drew it thanking you all!

Year 2009 is getting over…
How was this year to you? Did you have special days or experiences or achievements or anything this year? As for me, altogether I’d say this year was very good!

-good things-
-I could finally travel abroad for the first time in 4 or 5 years. I went to Australia, Netherlands, Belgium, and Italy.
-I was able to have 2 Onsen (hot spring) trips: one was to West Japan, including Kyoto and Osaka, the other one was with Pi-chan.
-I worked harder on this blog, and it seems that the visiters, subscribers, and comments have increased a lot, compared to this time last year.
-I could get connected with many people from blogging, and I actually made friends with some of them. I met them in person! There was even someone who I worked with! This is so great, as it’s one of the purposes of keeping this blog.
-I started to trade stocks and made good profit out of them for a beginner. (beginner’s luck?!)
-I challenged DECOTTI and decoden for the first time but they went good.
-Thanks to Pi-chan, I found exuberant motherhood inside myself, which was least expected in my life so far and widen my way of thinking.

-bad things-
-I have become too busy to see friends often.
-I got fat because I have to work on computer too long hours and no time to exercise.
-For the same reason above, I sometimes suffer from back ache, dry eye, and stiff shoulder.
-I had less job offers for writing (in Japanese).

This year I had more good things than bad things, which I believe is because sometime ago, it was vice versa.
Then what I want to achieve next year?

-I need to work out to get fit and lose accursed fat! I’ve made an appointment for a beginner Belly Dance class that is open for trial on 8th Jan. 2010.
-I learned how it’s like to trade stocks this year, which was less risky compared with Forex because there’s no notion of leverage. Now I’m starting to study Forex and I will practice trading on Forex next year to gain profit safely.
-I work on blog as much as I have done this year, to make it more useful, informative, helpful, enjoyable and interesting to my blog readers. Hopefully I want to make a free material for you to enjoy. But I wonder what topic will make many of my blog readers happy.
-I want to enjoy cooking more. Now it has become a chore that I cannot stop and keep doing day after day. I want to change my mind.

To make these possible, I know I have to give up some things. That’s how things are.
I will have less time seeing my friends, which I have to accept.
I will have to struggle and suffer from practicing trading Forex.
I will have no time to study foreign language, even though I’m quite interested in that.
I will have small time of reading books, and almost no time to watch TV and movie. (same as this year)
I will be busy again…
But it’s OK, I have a big goal, and to achieve it I can accept this.

I wish you all the best for 2010, and I’ll see you again in next year! As mentioned in my last post, end of the year to early January is a long period of holiday for Japanese people who can finally rest from work. It’s only Golden Week in May and this time of the year that we can rest without hesitation against our colleagues or boss of the company that one works for. That’s why many of us travel this time paying 3 times more money than off-peak season.

I will be away from blogging for a while, maybe until around 3rd of January.

Thank you for reading my blog, and exchanging comments or messages with me from time to time.
I really enjoy communication with people from various places around the world. I will just do my best to keep this blog a better place for you and make it useful or informative and also entertaining. If you have any opinions, suggestions, messages, or anything, please feel free to contact me or leave me comments.

How would you like to spend next year? Do you have any big plan or goal?
Best wishes for your new year 2010!!

I remember it was 1st of November when every shop started playing Christmas songs to urge Christmas shopping or only to create joyful atmosphere. That lasted until 25th of December, and what happens from the very next morning in Japan? Everyone starts to prepare for New Year Day and super market is such a good example that changes its decoration or foods so much: from Western foods, sparkling wine, and desserts to special foods that are to make Japanese new year cuisine, called “Osechi ryori“. This website lists Osechi recipe: how to fix each of Osechi food in Japanese. Even if you can’t read it, you can guess how hard it’d be to make so many different things at a time. (Actually today many of them are pre-fixed and sold at super market, though…) As for myself, I don’t like “Osechi ryori” very much since my chidhood. However, unlike old days, most of stores open except for 1st of January in Tokyo, which practically means there’s no need to pre-fix Osechi ryori for the whole family to keep eating it until 3rd of January. What do I mean? As mentioned in my old post, in Japan New Year is much more meaningful than Christmas, and so most of companies let their employees have about 1-week of holiday from end of December to at least to 3rd of January. Housewives usually prepare Osechi ryori by New Year eve (Dec. 31) so they can rest 3 days of new year without cooking much. But that’s an old story and not true any more today, because super markets open from 2nd of January, so as some restaurants, which is unlike old days when almost all stores closed around 5th or 6th of January…

Having said that, it’s our tradition to eat Osechi ryori. Nowadays as we have less kids, and there are many ways to outsource Osechi instead of cooking it by ourselves, there are many people who reserve Osechi somewhere, at online shop for example. As for myself, I never cooked Osechi by myself nor ordered it somewhere else. I just visit my husband’s parents and eat it there. :p Osechi looks very beautiful and each food has a meaning such as longevity, prosperity, victory, luck or happiness…thus we still like to eat it even though the situation has totally changed today.

It’s not only Osechi that we should think about. As you have exchaned Christmas cards, we exchange new year’s cards called “Nengajo”. Before email was available, I spent quite a lot of time making my original cards every year. But lately I have noticed, I don’t have to exchange them with close friends because I see them very often. They say there’s no need to follow old tradition and keep formal between us. Those who send me new year’s cards are the ones I don’t see often. In other words, it’s not too much to say that they are sort of friends who are connected with only 1 card in 365 days. As is often the case, the card is made from a photo of their KIDS only, not themselves, saying “My girl has turned 3 years old, she now can do this and that, she is blar, blar, blar…” and NO INFORMATION about themselves! To me, this just looks like they are reporting me on the details of their kids every year. Well…good to hear that, but I’d be much more interested in what THEY are doing, not what THEIR KIDS are doing…This really makes me feel uncomfortable and I do wonder if they have ever thought of the feelings of the people who cannot have kids even if they want to. Hence I stopped writing new year’s cards a couple of years ago, and only reply to those who sent me cards. I’d like to suggest that we should meet and chat instead of exchanging cards only one time a year and continue that superficial relationship. (I’m not talking about Christmas cards that I exchange with people outside Japan. They are close friends but I cannot see them often because of distance.)

Osechi or new year’s cards, whatever it is around new year is not really my taste. I at least visit my husband’s parents for new year’s greeting, first shrine visit to pray for wellness in the new year, and reply to those who send me their kids photo cards, I mean Nengajo. :p I’m a lazy Japanese who is not faithful to its tradition and culture, and is more likely to be crezy for New Year Sale from the 2nd of January!! (LOL)

*Disclaimer: The photo is quoted from this page of KIRIN beer.

★Gaijin Gyaru★
29/AUG/2009 on air
***When there are more than 2 x Tokyo Kawaii TV videos in the “home” page of this blog, you can see only latest one’s screen. But that doesn’t mean you cannot watch the previous one(s). To watch previous one(s), just click the title of the post and you’ll see the screen will appear. Sometimes it seems an error occurs that videos are not corresponding to the titles of the post, even though the HTML code is corresponding. To avoid this, click the title of the post before you just click to play the video. I have no idea why this is happening, but for example now Gaijin Gyaru video is somehow replaced by previous content. But it seems that once you click the post title to open the post and play the video, you can reach Gaijin Gyaru video. Sorry for confusing. ***

The player will show in this paragraph

What are they saying? I can tell you…

I decorated the top of a jam bottle with Decotti cream that is left over from my Decotti sets.  I’ve filmed myself how I did that (very simple though) and I’d love to share it with you here!  If you ever try Decotti, I’m sure you will have a lot more cream than you need for Decotti. Although Decotti doesn’t recommend we should use it on any objects other than Decotti because it’s not adhesive enough, I think it’s a waste if we just throw it away after Decotti.

From what I’ve experienced, I think it’s better you prepare an object you want to decorate on as well as additional rhinestones (Swarovski or crystal materials that you also can use for nail decorations will be OK) or clay sweets to make it look nicer. And do that right after Decotti. Even if you cover the mouth of the cream, it does get dry as time passes! If you make use of the Decotti cream wisely, I think you can enjoy more than what you paid for. Decotti itself looks expensive, but if you make some extra decorations with the left-over cream, you’ll find it was paid off. Well, that’s my thought. It’s all up to you!

In the video it was out of focus, but below is the picture of what I made.

How about the other one?

I bought a star shaped polystyrene foam for about 130yen at ABC craft the other day.
When I made this after the jam bottle, the cream was about to dry up! The mouth was totally stuck with dried cream, and so I had to cut the other part of the pouch to let the cream out. That’s why the cream here is not shaped in 6 stars or 8 stars, as the diaphram worked only if it’s set on the mouth of the cream pouch. I kinda put many decorations over the cream to hide the ugly shape of whip cream that I directly put out from the cream pouch. Some decorations are from my 30cm Christmas tree. :p I’ve finally used up 2 pouches of Decotti cream that is left over from my making Decotti macaroons and cupcakes.

Do we have Christmas in Japan?
I’d say…we have a sort of romance under the name of “Christmas” in Japan. What do I mean? Well, it’s not too much to say that Christmas has no religious meanings for most of Japanese people except for Christian. Then what day is that? It’s a day to spend with your lover! That’s why Christmas eve, 24th of Dec. is more important in Japan than 25th, the very Christmas day. (In fact, in our culture, new year eve and a new year day, up until 3rd of January is more important for every single Japanese!)

*Disclaimer: These photos are quoted from walkerplus. Rurubu has a similar site too, if you are interested in…

If you are a faithful Christian, please do not get offended at our superficial event making use of “Christmas”.
Whatever it is…HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO YOU ALL!!