Maneki Neko says...

...HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

What is a maneki neko, you say? Just walk into an Asian shop near you and chances are you'll see one ^.^ As for these adorable little things, they are kadomatsu, or gate pines, a traditional Japanese New Year decoration. 

The majority of these kadomatsu's are made of real pines, bamboos, and straw ropes. The 3 bamboo spokes represent heaven (the tallest), humanity, and earth (the two lower, though some makes the humanity spoke taller than the earth spoke). They are sold in pairs, representing male and female. 

I'm sure they make these in plastic too, but I haven't seen any. 

Either way, they can last for quite a while, though I think most people just throw them out after new year, which is a total waste. I'm definitely saving mine. They're so adorable there's no way I'd throw them out. 

I will need to find a box to store them in a few days. These will make a rockin' souvenir from my time in Japan, don't you think? I'll bring them home and decorate my house with them ^.^

For now, they are decorating my mini oven toaster, which is right next to my dining area window LOL!

As for my brief visit with my family at home, it was short but wonderful! We even had a snow storm that deposited some 13 inches of snow in the metropolitan area, which shut us all inside for a day!

A view outside grandma's window.

And lots of snow means hubby gets to revert to his childhood self and runs and plays in the snow. Barefooted.

  

And our two families met up over a bowl of pho at one of the pho houses in town. My sister took the picture, so she wasn't in the photo. My brother is the punk in the back with the sunglasses. Hubby's sister was with her hubby and his family. It was a really cold and windy day, but our hot noodles soup were warming ^.^

Phở tái - pho with rare steak.

Phở gà - chicken Pho, with lighter chicken broth versus the usual heartier beef broth. 

My favorite is Bún bò Huế - a spicy braised beef noodles soup from Central Vietnam. They are served with pork leg and blood tofu, but I ....erh... skipped those ^.^

And although it wasn't Lunar New Year, my family and I went out and had a huge sushi feast ^.^ It's a Chinese tradition to eat fish during (Lunar) new year, because "fish" (魚) is a homonym for "extra/more than enough" (餘), and thus 年年有魚 (have fish year after year) is a pun for the Chinese idiom 年年有餘 (have extra/more than enough money, food, etc., year after year). 

So here's to a prosperous new year for everyone!!!