We have mostly been working in the mornings (Lis had a dissertation deadline to meet) and exploring Kobe in the afternoon. For the last day of the year we got out of the house a little earlier than normal and did some last minute exploring before everything shut down for New Years.
Left on the to do list? A walk through Kitano (the European-style houses on the hill), a mattcha/redbean latte from Starbucks (only spotted the day before) and a swing through Harborland to see the water (and perhaps the pink pirate ship). We managed to hit the first two birds with one stone by drinking our latte at the Starbucks that's IN one of the old houses in Kitano. We not only had the mattcha/ redbean latte, but also the redbean "cube danish" with the mattcha frosting. After a lazy morning chatting, we wandered down the hill towards the water. We stopped in Chinatown for a steamed nikuman and then did a lap around Harborland.
Having done our tourist duty we headed home to prepare for the New Year. We made soba (buckwheat noodle) soup with the fancy red carrots that come out for the New Year and we settled in for an evening of nationally televised musical splendor. They did not disappoint this year. There were many instant costume changes, enka stars rising up on enormous chinese dragons, pop idols playing with interactive decorative screens and a Japanese version of "Mexican" dancing to an enka song called "Mariachi."
At 11:45 the show ended and scenes from famous temples and shrines around Japan started moving across the TV. The Buddhists started ringing the enormous temple bells (108 times?), people were waiting anxiously to pray for good fortune in the coming year, there were bonfires and people skiing with torches in Hokkaido. At midnight the throngs of visitors poured into the temples and shrines to pray, dispose of old luck charms and buy charms for the coming year.
One Japanese tradition is to go to a temple or shrine for midnight and join these throngs. I was up for it, but Russell and Lis couldn't be budged. For good reason, I suppose... we had decided to do hatsu-hinode or the first greeting of the sun. That meant waking up at 4am and hiking up a mountain to get the best view of the sun as it crested above the horizon at 7am. They were looking forward to their full four hours of sleep. It was probably for the best.
We did get up at 4am. We made a thermos of tea and packed snacks and dry underclothes to change into at the top. We managed to hit the street at 4:45 and hiked up behind our house to a trailhead that would take us to the top of Mt Maya. This is the same Mt Maya we swore we would never hike up again after getting the idea to go hiking our first summer in Japan. It was no easy hike, but we did better this time than the first time. Lis (mountain goat she is and dead set on seeing the sun no matter what) followed a more seasoned team of hikers and made it to the top of the mountain before us. Russell and I plodded our way up as well and also managed to arrive about 15-20 minutes before the sun rose. Perfect timing. 
After the sunrise we changed into our dry clothes, ate snacks and reassessed. We could go down the way we came up (boring) or try a new route that would take us over to the neighboring mountain and down to the Kobe reservoir and Nunobiki waterfall. We opted for route #2. We were very footsore by the end of the trip, but rather proud of the accomplishment, too. We staggered home and broke out our osechi box. None of us had the energy to shower first, so we opted to just eat. 
The osechi box this year was even more awesome than last year. It was three full boxes of bite sized treats with an extra box containing our New Year fish - a grilled fellow in action pose. Notice that, try as we might and appetites that we definitely had, we just couldn't quite polish off the feast. We did a pretty good job, though.
Tummies full, Russell and I proceded to pass out on the floor under the kotatsu. Lis was made of stouter stuff and worked on her dissertation- also under the kotatsu. Even after the nap, Russell was struggling with the crazy wake-up time and 6 hour hike. Around 6pm he went to bed and hasn't been seen since. Lis and I went to Sannomiya (downtown) to see the action at the local shrine. The roads leading the the shrine were cut off to traffic and lined with food stalls. Crowds of people were still streaming into the shrine to pray, get their first New Year fortune and buy lucky charms. The trees on the premises had been surrounded by netting to save them from visitors tying their fortunes off on the branches (which is tradition) and instead the netting was covered with a coat of white paper knots. Picture to come. We bought some ichigo daifuku (strawberries wrapped in sweet bean paste and rice dough) and headed home.
You will notice a bush in this picture. This was taken before New Year when the shrine was setting up for the festivities. People could leave their fortunes and their charms from the year before at this bush. Now check out the bush ON New Years. 12 hours of luck charms later...
I had rolled my ankle just before finishing the hike in the morning, so we stopped at a local store and bought an ankle brace. It helps a lot. Tomorrow we are off to either Kyoto or Nara - and there will be no shortage of walking there. Best to shore up now.
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