Family: ★A dream of Home & Home-made mochi★

Finally!! I've been thinking about writing this post for.. about a week now. :)

But I needed to put the video together first, which unfortunately takes forever on my poor, old computer.

So a couple weeks back, we traveled all the way back to Nabari (in Mie Prefecture) to visit Shota's family for a little shogatu fun times. Mostly exchanging otoshidama (new years money..?) and eat food. Eating a LOT of food. And of course, eating mochi..! :3


Nabari is a little over an hour away from Osaka by sub-rapid express train, but when usually go, we have to use the Express, which takes closer to an hour and twenty. Not really much of a difference except when it's 9pm and you're just dying to get home D:


As you can see, after the train station and some cram school businesses and bars.. there's just mountains. So many mountains..
That also means it's really cold :<

This is a photo of Shota and his brother-in-law. They both got their hair in similar styles without knowing it~ I think his brother's cut is a little cooler, but don't tell Shota that :x








Here's a shot of the rice used to make mochi. It's a little different from normal rice, probably a little shorter and fatter. It actually reminded me of popcorn :D Or that might just be my tummy growling now..








The rice is then put into this fancy little machine. It actually cooks the rice (the same as a normal rice cooker would) before pulverizing (?) it. Total cooking time from kernels to gooey mochi form is about forty minutes.


That means we have to kill time while we wait..




So we tried a little shichinarabe (I don't know what it's called in English D: but it's a card game) while waiting.

Danju, who is only 4, was having none of that rules nonsense so he made up his own game and forced everyone else to play.


I love how happy Danju looks and how confused Shota's bro looks..! Lol


Meina prefers to wait patiently at the table for her mochi.

Maybe she's thinking first dibs?


Or she just wants to play in the flour..





After being pulvarized into the gooey ball shape (up top), it's time to take it out (while it's hot) and separate it (while it's hot). I tried it last year. This year I just took a video. ;D









First dibs indeed! Look at that happy face :]









Happy faces after bellies full of mochi. I think Danju was holding back from his 100% smile, but that's better than the running in fear he was doing earlier. Meina, as you can see, loves the camera. She does hate, however, wearing pants.






These mochi have red bean paste in them, though you can't really see it. That type of mochi is usually referred to as 'daifuku.'

I don't like the taste of red bean so much, so I usually eat mochi with 'kinako' which is soy bean powder. It doesn't sound delicious, but it is..!! You can buy it in warabi-mochi snacks from the super market. Try it sometime!♪