New Year's Japan-Style

While none of the people I spoke with today at the Japanese-American Heritage Museum in LA's Little Tokyo neighborhood seemed to know exactly when Japanese New Year is or was - the most common answer was that Japanese Americans seem to celebrate New Year's the entire first week of January, which sounds wonderful to me - today marked the annual celebration of the Oshogatsu Family Festival held at the museum.  This being the Year of the Dragon, there were lots of dragon-themed activities (as well as general Japanese new year fare) for us and for our three-year-old nephew, Garrett.

There was a contest for the best decorated new year's rice ball.  My car with seaweed windows and grape wheels finished on the "honorable mention" table, a fact I am immensely proud of, since my artistic ability is so limited that even my stick figures come out quite lopsided.  (And ha ha ha to Ruth, since she didn't even make it that far.)

Garrett ended up with a dragon head on a stick with ribbons that he scribbled on, a dragon hat of similar makeup and an awesome dragon balloon animal to hold as he watched candy stretching being expertly designed into dragon (and other) shapes.

This was all fun, but for me, the highlight was the trip across the street to Wakasaya.  Walking by, Ruth spotted a $7.99 lunch special for wakame (seaweed) udon served with a side.  Sounded good to us, and it sure was!

Udon is a thick noodle served in soup.  In this case, the soup was fish broth, and the noodles were joined by seaweed, green onions and fish cakes that look like radishes.  My "side" was tuna belly served over rice; Ruth got the spicy tuna.

Now I love Japanese food, but noodle soups in particular.  In Japanese society, it is not only not considered impolite to slurp your noodles - which I do naturally, societal norms or not - it is even a compliment to the chef, as it signifies how much you are enjoying them.  So I slurped, Ruth slurped, though a little more daintily, and our conversation quickly turned into grunts of enjoyment.

Good day, good food, honorable mention in art.  Can't ask for too much more than that in life.