Where We Want to Live in 2022?

Happy New Year to all of you🎍
I am grateful that my family is all healthy, we have been able to try many things and meet many new people in 2021, despite this pandemic.

Doesn’t Feel Like Japanese New Year

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We spent the last month on the west coast of the United States, and after three days of forced quarantine upon our return, we finally returned to our home in Tokyo on December 29th.

And since we are in the middle of a 14-day self-quarantine after returning to Japan, we won’t be able to go to my parents’ home in Onjuku during the New Year holidays.
This is the third or fourth New Year’s Day in my life that I have not spent in Onjuku.

For that reason, I baked my favorite cornbread I bought from the U.S. and made pulled pork as a side dish that we don’t eat much in Japan. When we were eating what we wanted to eat and had a meal that didn’t feel like New Year’s Day in Japan, we received a package from my mom in the morning of New Year’s Day which makes us feel Japan.

It also contains the annual handmade yokan, sweet bean jelly. I remember when I was little, I helped my grandmother make yokan on the night of December 30 or 31 by cooking azuki beans in a big pot, straining them, and boiling them down, taking a lot of time.

Where to go & live in 2022

This pandemic has limited the scope of our activities, but unfortunately, time doesn’t stop and it doesn’t wait for us.

With the utmost care, I would like to see the new place with my own eyes and experience its lifestyle this year as well.

Last year, we started “living between two places, Tokyo and Onjuku”.
This year, we would like to spend more time in Onjuku and deepen our connection with the local community.

To another good year!!