A Happy New Year!

As most long-term readers of this blog know, I went through a lot of challenges in the past couple of years. In 2009, the challenges were mostly related to adjustment issues, and in 2010, they came from the combination of mom's surgery, dad's hypochondriasis and my work. It is just amazing that I survived all the turmoil. I guess you can survive most anything if you don't really care about "how well." LOL

To minimize mom's workload in the kitchen, we cooked only a few kinds of new year's food at home. More than half of the food packed in our tiered boxes for osechi feast was store-bought this year, but it actually did not ruin any festivity and made things a lot easier for all of us on the new year's eve. So I was happy.

You see the cute pink-and-white thing in the top photo? It is steamed fish cake called kamaboko in Japan, and I cut it that way to make it look festive. If you can get kamaboko and want to know how to do that, the instruction is on this site -- the one at the bottom.

As a representative of my family, I visited the nearby shrine at midnight on the new year's eve, just like previous years. The stars were oh-so bright in the winter sky that I felt as if I heard their twinkling sound.

And at 7 am on January 1st, 2011, I was on top of the cape to see the first sunrise of the year at the highest lookout in the city, because I really, really need a good luck this year!

I wish you and yours the very best for 2011!!

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