Matsunouchi

You can keep your New Year's decorations up until about January 7th. You'll see big kado matsu outside stores and hotels, made of bamboo and pine branches and smaller arrangements of pine outside houses to encourage the new year god to visit and bring good luck. So this time is known as "matsunouchi" - literally 'during the pine'. You can buy pine branches and shime kazari decorations (usually featuring shinto rope to keep out bad spirits and lucky symbols like lobsters and oranges and kelp) at the supermarket for your front door or alcove, from about 250 yen (plastic and straw). These days a lot of people don't even bother.

The kadomatsu outside Dozeu Iidaya, a very famous dojou (loach) restaurant in Asakusa

We also had a kagami mochi in the house - mochi cakes shaped like mirrors, because gods were meant to live in mirrors. Remember that next time you're preening in the bathroom mirror! After January 11th, you can break the mochi and put it in soup. You can buy the kagami mochi formed inside a plastic cover, or you can make your own mochi - which few people do these days. In Asakusa, I came across an elaborate kagami mochi with a real lobster and real fruit etc. It was in the window of Bunsendo, a famous fan shop which supplies kabuki actors.

kagami mochi in Bunsendo

I went to Ginza to see all the elaborate New Year decorations - far more subdued than Christmas, but very beautiful. I stopped off at Higashiya, a wonderful sweet store and cafe in the POLA building (on Chuo dori, Ginza 1-7-7, 2F). I wanted to buy hanabira mochi, which is a traditional sweet to have with the year's first tea ceremony. For a change, I tried yuzu green tea, made with whole yuzu; very refreshing. I'm afraid the dining options in the cafe are quite expensive, so I opted for the shio musubi - a simple, salted rice ball wrapped in nori. Wow. It was the most delicious one I've ever tasted, and I realised the ones I make for my huband's lunch are pretty bland in comparison. Since it was New Year, they also offered free sweet, warm sake!

Hanabira mochi is sweet, but not overly so. The mochi is wrapped around miso paste and sweetened gobo - burdock. The slightly "turnip-ish" burdock taste is a nice balance to the sweet miso and mochi.

Hanabira mochi