Happy New Year from SoraNews24!

It’s time to celebrate the Year of the Rabbit!

Here in Japan, New Year’s Day is celebrated like Christmas Day is in the West, only instead of going to church we visit shrines and temples, instead of presents there’s otoshidama, instead of Christmas dinner there’s osechi, and in place of wreaths and trees we have kadomatsu and kagami mochi.

It’s a day filled with tradition that’s usually spent quietly with family, and one of the few days of the year where people actually take time off work, so we’ll be taking the day off to enjoy the festive occasion…and our latest lucky bag hauls.

Wherever you may be, and however you choose to celebrate, we hope you’ll be enjoying the day too, and we’d like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to all of you for reading our articles and supporting our site this past year.

Whether we’re writing about anime, food, tech, or Frappuccinos, we always have the motto “readers’ first” in mind, and it’s a tradition we’ll be continuing in the years to come as we bring you even more weird and wonderful stories about Japan!

So we’ll be raising a glass of sake to you, wonderful readers, as we celebrate New Year’s today. We’ll be back with more news from Japan tomorrow, and until then…Happy New Year! May this be our best year yet!

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The meaning of the mandarin and 6 other Japanese New Year traditions explained

Join us as we take a look at some of the most popular Japanese New Year traditions and reveal the spiritual symbolism and superstitions behind them.

For people in Japan, the most important event on the calendar is New Year’s. With its focus on family and tradition, many people here take the first three days of the year off work to travel back to their hometowns and take part in festivities firmly rooted in centuries of culture and meaning.

So what are some of the most important and widespread traditions in Japan? Join us as we delve deeper into some of these customs and explore their symbolism and significance.

1. The difference between ganjitsu and gantan: why are there two ways to write New Year’s Day in Japanese?

Both 元日 (ganjitsu) and 元旦 (gantan) mean “New Year’s Day” in Japanese. Commonly used on New Year’s cards to mark the first day of the new calendar year, there’s actually a slight variation in meaning due to the different kanji in each expression. The 日 in 元日 means “sun” or “day” in Japanese, giving the impression of “first day”, while the 旦 in 元旦 refers to sunrise (can you see the “日” or “sun” peeking over the flat horizon in the second kanji?), emphasising the notion of “first sunrise“, which is quite significant, given that many Japanese will watch the sunrise with friends and family at the crack of dawn on January 1.

2. What’s with the bamboo and pine decorations at the door?

The start of the year is a spiritual time for Japanese, when New Year’s gods are said to descend from the heavens and exist in the earthly realm. In order to guide the gods towards them, many households, businesses and sacred sites put up pine and bamboo decorations known as kadomatsu, on either side of entrance ways. The decorations, with multi-tiered bamboo shoots representing heaven, earth and humanity, are believed to attract the gods and draw the lucky spirits towards them. The gods dwell in the pine until January 7, after which time the decorations are taken to a shrine to be burnt, releasing the spirits back to their realm.

3. Why is there always a mandarin on top of New Year’s rice cakes?

The Japanese New Year’s cake, made from two round layers of pounded rice, is commonly crowned with a bright orange Japanese mandarin called a mikan. This is actually a modern addition, as traditionally these cakes were adorned with a different citrus fruit known as daidai. Daidai are considered auspicious as the meaning of the word can be translated to “generation after generation”, representing the family’s wish for a long and prosperous bloodline. However, as the daidai fruit is large and bitter, the more palatable and proportionally pleasing mikan became widely used, while still retaining the daidai notion of health and longevity.

4. Why is it called kagami-mochi or “mirror rice cake”?

The New Year’s rice cake is another festive item said to contain the spirit of the gods. Its round shape is a homage to one of the holiest items in all of Japan, the mirror of the sun goddess Amaterasu. According to Japanese mythology, the earth went dark when Amaterasu retreated from the world and hid in a cave. The sun goddess was eventually drawn out from the cave with a mirror, ultimately bringing light back into the world. With its round, mirror-like shape, Kagami mochi symbolises the renewal of light and energy present at the start of a new year, and it’s ceremoniously cracked with a hammer or opened with your hands (never with a knife as that’s too similar to seppuku disembowelment) on January 11, when the small pieces are eaten in a New Year’s soup called ozoni.

5. Why are festive chopsticks tapered at both ends?

Festive chopsticks, known as iwaibashi, are made using wood from the willow tree, which has been considered sacred since ancient times. The thickness of the middle is said to represent a full straw bag, which suggests a bumper crop of rice, while the tapered ends indicate that the chopsticks can be used to eat with from either side. When using the chopsticks, however, only one end should be used for eating as the other is reserved for the gods present at the feast.

6. What’s the significance of drinking special spiced sake?

Traditionally served on New Year’s Day, this special sake is said to expel last year’s bad luck and help with health and longevity in the new year. Known as O-toso, using the kanji 屠 (defeat) and 蘇 (evil spirit), the medicinal herbs used in this mixture are said to assist digestion and protect against colds, perfect for the winter feasts of the New Year. The sake is served from a lacquered pot and poured into three different-sized shallow drinking cups which each family member sips from, in order of smallest to largest. Guests who visit in the New Year are also offered the special sake as a way of extending the wish for their health in the new year.

7. What’s the meaning behind the traditional New Year’s holiday food?

Osechi-ryori, the traditional New Year’s holiday food in Japan, has a long tradition stretching back to the Heian Period (794-1185). Originally, it was considered taboo to cook meals on a hearth during the first three days of the New Year, so stackable boxes filled with long-lasting food items were prepared by December 31, for consumption over the first three days of the New Year. Although there are no problems associated with cooking during the holiday period today, many families still enjoy osechi-ryori, largely due to the auspicious associations attached to its ingredients:

Prawns (ebi) = the long beard and bent back symbolises a wish for long-life.

Herring roe (kazu no ko) = a cluster of bright herring eggs represents the kind of healthy offspring that one wishes for their family.

Black soybeans (kuro mame) = mame, also meaning “health”, is for health in the New Year.

Sea Bream (tai) = tai is fortuitous as it forms part of the word medetai, which means auspicious in Japanese.

Kelp (konbu) = konbu sounds a lot like yorokobu, the Japanese word for happiness.

Lotus Root (renkon) = the lotus root has many holes, which allow us to see through it and into the New Year.

Whether you’re in Japan at the moment or thinking about visiting in the future, New Year’s is a great time to take part in some unique events and learn more about the finer aspects of Japanese culture. Wherever you are, we hope you have a good one and all the best for the coming year!

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How to make noodles look restaurant quality in just three seconds

Little-known hack from a soba restaurant pro will give your noodles a professional look every time.

Today, on the last day of the year in Japan, people across the country are preparing to eat toshikoshi soba, or “Year Crossing Soba“, which are extra long buckwheat noodles designed to help you cut ties with all the bad luck from the previous year as you cross over to a new one.

▼ The extra long noodles are also a wish for longevity in the new year.

With most people cooking up noodles at home, now is the perfect time to share a very cool presentation hack that not many people know about. And the great thing is, it works with any type of noodle, whether it be Year Crossing noodles or regular soba, udon or ramen.

Our reporter Go Hatori is the one sharing the hack with us today, using a skill he learned when he received his chef’s license from a Japanese soba restaurant. He’d like to pass on what he learned in the field, and all you need to follow along is a bowl of freshly boiled noodles, with the hot broth poured over them.

When people make noodles at home, this is what the end result usually looks like.

In a country that prides itself on perfect presentation, a bowl of noodles like this wouldn’t make the cut in most soba restaurants. And that’s where Go’s hack comes in. Are you ready to change your noodle presentation habits forever? Then take a look at Go’s movements below.

As you can see, all you need to do is lift a large clump of noodles above the bowl with your chopsticks, and then lay them down in a folding motion, moving them towards you before laying the noodles nearest your chopsticks on the surface of the broth on the far side of the bowl.

▼ It takes seconds to do, but the end result is dramatically different.

▼ Before (left) and after (right)

If you want to get really fancy with your noodles for a big occasion like New Year’s, you can add some greens and a couple of prawn tempura on top for a restaurant-worthy look.

Go cheated by buying his prawn tempura ready-made from the supermarket, but with professional-looking presentation like this, nobody would be able to tell the meal isn’t handmade.

So next time you’re looking to impress guests with a meal of noodles, or simply want to zhuzh up a bowl for yourself, don’t forget to try Go’s hack. It only takes three seconds to make your noodles look like the soba you’d eat at a fancy restaurant, so there’s no reason not to give it a try!

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We get a rare whiff of the corpse flower, a.k.a. the world’s stinkiest flower, in Tokyo botanical garden

We were ‘lucky’ enough to see and smell the rare flower, which blooms once every few years.

In Japan, there is a famous saying: “kusai mono ni futa“. Translated literally, it means “put a lid on something smelly” and it usually refers to covering up or hushing up scandals. However, here at SoraNews24, we actually gravitate towards things with unsavoury smells. In the past we’ve tried eating surströmming, the notoriously stinky Swedish fish, and one time our boss made us smell his unwashed socks that had been worn for five days straight. Rather than put a lid on anything smelly we might find, we welcome it with open arms, because in the end seeing other people endure foul smells is just plain entertaining.

So when we heard info from Tokyo’s Jindai Botanical Gardens that their corpse flower was about to bloom, we rushed down as soon as we could. You see, the corpse flower is not only incredibly rare to see bloom, it also has an intensely foul aroma, and is often referred to as the world’s stinkiest flower.

The corpse flower, so-called because the smell it emits after blooming is like a corpse, only flowers once every few years. On top of that, it blooms for just two days during its cycle.

The plant is native to Indonesia, but there are a few places around Japan that are growing their own corpse flowers. The Jindai Botanical Gardens (where we visited) and the Tsukuba Experimental Botanical Gardens have so far produced five blooming corpse flowers.

▼ The previous four generations of corpse flower at the Jindai Botanical Gardens

This corpse flower was especially exciting for flower fans as both the leaves and flowers emerged from the buds at the same time, which has only happened twice in recorded history. Such a big event this was in the world of horticulture that, since the announcement that the flower was due to bloom any day soon, the park temporarily opened on Mondays, when they are normally closed, just in case the flower bloomed!

The plant’s flowers start to bloom in the evening, so our reporter Mariko Ohanabatake headed to the botanical park as the sun started to set. The smell is said to be the most intense on the first night it blooms, so Mariko took one last deep breath before entering.

She was guided towards the greenhouse by a member of staff, who helpfully asked her, “Are you ok with bad smells?” Mariko, as a member of the SoraNews24 team, naturally gets more excited the worse the smell is, but knew better than to say such a strange thing out loud, so just nodded.

But as she opened the door to the greenhouse…

▼ … she was met with an overwhelmingly revolting stench, that made even a seasoned professional like her flinch!

Even though she had barely crossed the entrance to the greenhouse, Mariko could already smell the foul aroma of the corpse plant. In her mind, she’d imagined the ‘stench radius’ of the corpse flower as roughly an arm’s length around the plant…

▼ Mariko’s imagined ‘stench radius’

… but actually the smell extended much, much further out, like this —

▼ The stench spread a lot further.

Even now, as she was standing at a considerable distance from the plant, Mariko could smell notes of ‘garbage dump in the summer’. Wonderful, but at least she wasn’t at ‘rotting corpse’ level just yet. Would that change the closer to the plant Mariko got?

The corpse flower looked very unique, with large leaves growing on the right and reddish-purple flowers on the left. The flowers can grow up to three meters (9.8 feet) in size, but because the leaves and flower bloomed at the same time, this one was a little shorter.

The smaller size didn’t stop it from smelling awful though, and as Mariko edged closer to the plant the scent got worse.

With the dark atmosphere of the greenhouse at night and the unique-looking flower, it was almost like Mariko was admiring a piece of modern art.

Using a stepladder, Mariko was able to get up close and get a proper whiff of the flower. As she peered into the plant, she was met with the aroma of ‘outdoor festival toilets in the middle of summer’.

But why does the corpse flower have such a rancid smell? Most flowers emit sweet scents to attract insects, which in turn help them reproduce through pollination. Amazingly, the corpse flower’s unique scent works in the same way — the foul odour attracts carrion beetles and flesh flies, who are drawn to the smell of decaying meat. 

The corpse flower is an endangered species, with fewer than 1,000 plants left in the wild, so being able to see it in person is a real treat regardless of whether or not it’s flowering. The corpse flower will remain on display at the Jindai Botanical Gardens. Even though it won’t bloom now for at least two years, it is still a rare and unique flower and definitely worth seeing!

And should you get the chance to see (and smell) it when it is in bloom, Mariko recommends taking it — just make sure you have a strong stomach to handle its deathly scent.

Park information
Jindai Botanical Gardens / 神代植物公園
Address: Tokyo-to, Chofu-shi, Jindaiji Motomachi 5-31-10
調布市深大寺元町二・五丁目、深大寺北町一・二丁目、深大寺南町四・五丁目
Open 8:30a.m – 5:00p.m
Closed Mondays
Website

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Mr. Sato orders Kura Sushi’s New Year’s kosechi meal for one but gets a chilly surprise

It’s almost like the New Year already wanted to give him the cold shoulder…or rather, a cold fish cake.

Our illustriously zany Japanese-language reporter Mr. Sato is a big fan of inexpensive sushi. It’s not unusual to find him dining at one of Tokyo’s numerous conveyor belt sushi chains such as Kura Sushi, which is exactly where he was headed on this particular day. His goal was to try the New Year’s kosechi (“small osechi”) that the chain began selling last year and which his coworker K. Masami had tried at the time. Eating extravagant and expensive osechi is a traditional New Year’s activity in Japan, so he couldn’t quite wrap his head around the thought of having a small, single-sized version for only 770 yen (US$5.75).

The particular West Shinjuku location that he was visiting had been quite packed with long wait times recently, so he prepared himself for a bit of a wait.

 

Sure enough, he walked in and was greeted by a check-in monitor which said that all seats were currently full. There was a crowd of mainly younger people also waiting around, likely students who had extra time now that they were on winter break.

However, a closer glance at the screen then made his jaw drop. The wait time for a single counter seat was a grand total of 67 minutes!

Mr. Sato was a little too hungry to wait there for an hour on an empty stomach, so he decided to take a trip outside to grab a snack in the meantime.

One hour later, the crowd had noticeably thinned out. He discovered that his number had actually been called a long time ago, but after talking to staff he was able to score an empty seat at the counter with no problem this time. He immediately started to browse the food options on his touchscreen panel and quickly spotted the kosechi meal.

▼ Kura Sushi’s kosechi, which includes small portions of eight individual foods that each have a symbolic, auspicious quality

He placed his order and sat back to wait. Other customers’ special orders passed by him on the belt but his kosechi was nowhere to be seen. Five minutes became 10 minutes…which turned into 15…and almost 20 minutes of waiting. For “fast food” at a sushi restaurant, something definitely seemed to be wrong. He began internally debating whether to call over a staff member to see if there was a problem. Just as he was about to turn, however, the kosechi dish pulled up right in front of him.

The eight individual foods this year consisted of freeze-dried tofu, a cooked shrimp, snow peas, kabocha, shiitake, sweet potato, and a kamaboko fish cake.

On top of the freeze-dried tofu was branded the kanji 寿 (kotobuki; it’s also the kanji used to write the su in sushi), which means “longevity.” It was a very fitting visual for New Year’s. Mr. Sato proceeded to take a bite and was pleasantly surprised by its crunchy texture.

He particularly admired the sweet potato, which was expertly sliced into the shape of a rabbit to celebrate 2023 being the Year of the Rabbit.

He continued trying each of the individual foods one by one. Once he took a bite of the kamaboko fish cake, however, he paused in surprise. It tasted…frozen! Sure enough, a closer look showed that there was still some ice around the cake.

So that must be what had taken so long–his kosechi had needed to be defrosted.

Apart from that unfortunately chilly greeting, Mr. Sato enjoyed his meal. He did have to wonder though why Kura Sushi felt the need to offer dishes of things such as kosechi which they don’t specialize in. It seemed like it just made the staffs’ jobs harder and made the customers wait longer. Oh well. Perhaps he’ll go in the opposite direction next and visit somewhere that specializes in one thing–such as the café where Mont Blanc was first offered in Japan.

Reference: Kura Sushi
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2022’s top stories in games and tech 【SoraNews24 Year in Review】

How technology kept us entertained and baffled this year.

Japan has one of the world’s largest and most passionate gamer populations, and the country has always respected innovators and inventors. Here are SoraNews24’s top stories from the past year that involved grabbing a controller, using a device, or thinking outside the mechanical box.

Top game stories of 2022

● Two crows decided to wreck a Pokémon GO player in Japan during Pokémon GO Fest

So…those crows were definitely sent by Team Rocket, right?

● New Hanger Rack from Japan looks like a great way to break your PlayStation controllers

For the gamer who says they love their controllers but secretly, deep down, wants to destroy them.

● “Gamer apartments” available to rent for under US$350 a month, comes with full gaming PC set up

Hardwood floors, spacious kitchen, short walk to the nearest station…yeah, sure, those would all be nice, but this sounds even better.

● The entire Pokémon Red and Blue Kanto region map, built as a 3-D diorama, looks amazing【Photos】

Who else would instantly buy a Red and Blue remake if it looked like this?

● Image-generating AI’s picture of “Final Fantasy VII Cloud” is so wrong, yet so right

Who knew Cloud was such an airhead?

Top tech stories of 2022

● We buy Amazon Japan’s lowest-rated perpetual motion machine

For when you want to go beyond the laws of thermodynamics, but you don’t want to spend a lot of money to do it.

● We bought a low-rated levitating speaker on Amazon that made us want to cry

Because, like, what would even be the point of achieving perpetual motion without the ability to levitate too?

● Japanese company develops a door within a door, and it’s a great idea

And maybe next year they’ll put a door in that one, and then the year after that they can…

● How to use the new floating hologram registers at 7-Eleven

Now 7-Eleven Japan isn’t awesome just because of what you can buy there, but how you buy it too.

● Sony’s wearable air conditioners selling like cold cakes in heat-stricken Japan

By the time mid-winter rolls around, it’s almost hard to remember how hot and humid Japan gets in the summer, but everyone remembers where they put these in six months’ time.

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This lucky bag of Tokyo snacks is full of delicious treats to take home–wherever home is!

There are 11 different items in this box–and they aren’t sample size either!!

You might already know that Japan has a culture of gifting people food after coming back from vacation. It’s kind of genius, actually, because then you don’t have to worry whether your best friend is going to hate the gaudy Hawaiian shirt you bought them, and instead you can delight them with the universal gift of food.

The best part is that, even within Japan, every region has its own omiyage, or souvenirs (which are often food), and that even includes the urban metropolis of Tokyo. In fact, Tokyo has so many specialty omiyage foods that it’s actually kind of hard to decide which ones to take home. We’ve got a list of six of some of our favorite omiyage snacks, but they’re not all exclusive to Tokyo, and that’s why our Japanese-language reporter K. Masami, who’s based out of Nara, highly recommends the “Tokyo Miyage Fuku Fuku Set”, or “Lucky Lucky Set of Tokyo Food Gifts”.

It’s actually a lucky bag (or box) only available at the end of the year and costs 9,980 yen (US$75.05), but it’s perfect if you have to buy obligatory souvenirs for a lot of people at the end of the year (or if you are a major snacker). Inside the box are not one, not two, but eleven different snacks local to Tokyo!

・Tokyo Banana Miitsuketa (Pack of 8)

A cream-filled, banana-shaped cake that is possibly one of Tokyo’s most famous snack souvenirs.

・Sugar Butter Sand Tree (Pack of 14)

A milky white chocolate filling sandwiched between two crispy, flaky pastries toasted with sugar butter.

・Caramelwich (Pack of 11)

A cookie sandwich of caramel coated in chocolate in between two caramel cookies.

・Tokyo Tamago Goma Tamago (Pack of 8)

An egg-shaped castella cake wrapped around black sesame paste with black sesame red bean paste in the middle.

・Trois Empilé Chocolat Hiyoko (Pack of 6)

A three-layer chick-shaped dessert: rich, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate surrounded by smooth chocolate red bean paste, wrapped in a fragrant dough that uses a special sweet white bean paste.

・Tokyo Station Yaki Chocolat (Pack of 12)

Baked chocolate sweets made from rich, bitter chocolate, a common souvenir of Tokyo Station.

・Tokyo Campanella Chocolat (Pack of 5)

A triple sandwich cookie made of three chocolate langue de chats and a deluxe chocolate filling.

・Katanukiya Kodomo Panda Baum and Panda Baum (1 each)

Baumkuchen cakes printed with images of pandas and baby pandas. The baby panda one is strawberry flavored.

・Edo Matsuri Ningyo Yaki Shingen-bukuro-iri (Pack of 8)

A famous street food from the neighborhood of Asakusa. Ningyo-yaki is a castella cake made into various shapes (usually a “ningyo” or “doll”) and filled with red bean paste. These ones came with a cute cloth bag.

・Tokiwado Kaminari-okoshi Honpo Joisobe

A variety pack of puffed rice cakes with a long history in Asakusa.

・Hanagataya Fuku Maneki Cafe Set

A novelty pour-over coffee pack supplied by the producer of this lucky bag, which is the perfect accompaniment to your hoard of sweets.

Each product actually comes with the paper bag you would receive if you actually bought it from its shop. One of the best and most polite ways to gift someone a souvenir is to hand it over while still inside the bag from the shop it came, so this is ideal. (Of course, if you plan on eating these all yourself, you can use them for shopping or something.)

Additionally, you don’t have to go into any stores to fight for this box of delectable snacks; it’s sold exclusively online by JR East Cross Station Retail Company through the Tokyo Miyage Kiosk Mall HANGATAYA Rakuten Market Shop and NewDays JRE Mall Shop.

Unfortunately, the Tokyo Miyage Fuku Fuku Set sold out immediately upon its release, following in the footsteps of last year’s lucky bag of Tokyo souvenirs, but luckily, it’s scheduled to go back on sale on January 1 at midnight (Japan standard time), so there’s still a chance to buy it.

You’ll have to wait by your computer on New Year’s Eve to get one before going off to your first shrine visit of the year–that is, if you don’t plan to conduct your “first lounging of the year” that night. But with so many snacks packed into this box, this is not a deal to sleep on–especially if you don’t live in the Tokyo area!

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