Saturday, January 19, 2008

Japanese New Year Eve at Ameyayokocho

Japanese celebrates the New Year on January 1st (not same as Chinese). The New Year's day is the most important holiday in Japan and the celebration continues from January 1st through 7th. Japanese eat Osechi to celebrate the New Year. Osech, consists many good luck dishes, has a long history started over 1000 years ago in Heian period. Osechi is usually served in luxurious wooden lacquerrd boxes. It is Japanese old custom that you suppose to only eat Osech during the frist 3 days of the new years. One of the reasons behind that was since all of the stores used to be cosed for the first 3 to 5 days of the year. Therefore they used special cooking technique to preserve the food longer.

New years eve is the busiest day to shop for ingredients for the Osechi. One of the most famous and busiest market in Tokyo is Ameyayokocho (Ameyoko) in Ueno.



























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