Winter Holiday

I love my family.

My winter holiday was an exciting trip. I went back to my home country, Japan. I met my grandparents and my cousins that I haven’t met for 2 years. I had the chance to catch up with them. There were so many things for me to do every day. But my favorite thing was spending time with my family.

Going to Japan reminded me of my Japanese culture. On New Year’s Eve, I ate Toshikoshi soba, the long noodles wish for us to live long. On New Year’s Day, I ate Osechi which is a special big bento box, and this bento is to give the traditional housewives a rest for the first 3 days of the new year. Every food in the bento has a special meaning. On New Years Day, we go to a local shrine to greet the gods.

We also went snowboarding. I had snowboarded once, 2 years ago so I didn’t remember how to get on and slide. On the first day, I could barely balance on the board. I struggled to get on the lift and fell off every time the lift ended. On the second day, I had lessons. My teacher was very friendly and we had lots of fun conversations together. After my first day of classes, I had improved so much. I could go straight and could do curves, but fell sometimes. I could get on and off the lift without falling. I was so proud of myself. On the second day, I was able to go down one of the hard routes with my older brother. I could do curves without falling. On the final day, I snowboarded down slopes with my parents and I had the best time ever.

I went back to Tokyo, and met my grandparents and cousins on my mother’s side. That was also very fun. We extended our stay since we had many more things that we have to do in Japan. My older brother went back to America. It was a fantastic winter break.

January 11th, 2021