Making New Year's Eve sobain a Kyoto townhouse

One December morning in Kyoto. Beyond the bare branches, Kyoto Tower and the city lay under a clear winter sky. In Ninenzaka, the morning light was just reaching the eaves of the old townhouses.

The end of the year had come in the blink of an eye. Along the Shirakawa, leafless cherry trees and willows reached out over the water, and the vermilion fence and the red lantern on Tatsumi Bridge caught the low morning sun. Past a narrow stone footbridge, I crouched for a while and watched the stream.

This year, I would spend the end of the year in Kyoto.

This time I borrowed a renovated Kyoto townhouse built in the Taisho era: a neat house of white walls and wooden window frames, with a round lamp above the front door.

Behind the latticed door, the earthen entry led on to tatami rooms. High on the open wall were windows set with colored glass and a round lamp, and soft winter light came in through frosted panes. A scroll painted with a bird hung on the wall. I would welcome the new year in this quaint old house.

Mustn't forget the New Year preparations. By the window I set out a small kagami-mochi topped with a fan and an orange-colored fruit. Kagami-mochi is an offering for Toshigami, the deity of the new year, who is welcomed into the home.

On the table, sweets wrapped in blue paper sat in a round bentwood box, with a card bearing the name 花斗六. According to the card, they bring out the flavor of large white runner beans, with a moist sweetness. I poured tea from a blue-and-white pot and took a break.

I wondered how the people who lived in this house in the Taisho era spent their Decembers. Winter sun slipped into a narrow lane between wooden fences.

For lunch I went to Kyogoku Kaneyo, a long-established eel restaurant near Shinkyogoku. It is said to date from the Meiji era and to keep the look it had in the early Taisho years. Big bamboo baskets and lantern-like lamps hung from the high ceiling, and through a gap in the shoji, smoke rose from eel grilling over charcoal.

First, umaki. In Kansai, umaki is eel rolled in a fluffy omelet rich with dashi. I poured a non-alcoholic beer into a glass printed with the name Kaneyo and waited for what I had come for: kinshi-don, the signature dish, said to be ordered twice as often as the regular eel bowl.

Under the lid, a Kyoto-style dashi omelet covered the whole bowl. Lifting it with my chopsticks, I found rice soaked in sauce and eel grilled to a fragrant char. Eating the dashi-rich egg and the sweet, savory eel together, there was only one word for it: koufuku, a blessing for the mouth. Kyoto, I love it here.

On the way back I passed through a narrow lane lined with bicycles. Ozoni, the soup no Japanese New Year is complete without, differs from region to region, which I find fascinating. I decided to try making the Kyoto version.

I washed a red carrot, sliced it into rounds, cut them into plum-blossom shapes and scored the petals. I peeled taro, simmered it in a pot and stirred in Kyoto white miso. Ideally I would have used kashiraimo, the large mother corm of the taro, and the small radishes grown for ozoni, but on the road I kept it simple.

The mochi here is round, and it is not grilled. I softened the rounds in hot water, set them in a red bowl with the carrot and taro, and ladled the white miso broth over them; the plum-blossom carrots floated up through the white. Topped with mitsuba, it tasted sweet and gentle. Now I was all set for the New Year.

Next on the New Year list: osechi, the boxed feast. I went to Gion, where a few autumn leaves still hung on, to buy red-and-white kamaboko to brighten the boxes.

Izuman, on Shinbashi-dori, has been making kamaboko since 1844, more than 170 years in Gion. Under its red lantern marked with the character zu, the glass case held Higashiyama gyohei, cheese matsukaze, anpei, premium kamaboko, Gosho kosode and Gion kamaboko.

Kamaboko in hand, I passed the torii of Tatsumi Daimyojin and wandered down a stone-paved lane.

One thing you must eat at a Kyoto teahouse is mitarashi dango, fresh off the grill. I headed to Kamo Mitarashi Chaya, across the road from Shimogamo Shrine. Beside the noren hung a sign reading Kyoto Specialty.

Shimogamo Shrine, one of the oldest shrines in Kyoto, is said to be the birthplace of mitarashi dango: the dumplings are said to be shaped after the bubbles that well up from the bottom of the Mitarashi Pond in its grounds. According to the information board, the sacred water rising by the three cedars of Tadasu no Mori has long nourished people's lives and fields. The vermilion gate glowed in the winter sun.

Five dumplings to a skewer, toasted until charred in spots and drenched in a sweet-and-salty sauce. I love their chewy bite. This is the taste of a teahouse that has been loved at the shrine's doorstep for over a hundred years.

And speaking of Kyoto specialties: public baths. After a look at the Kamo River, I crossed a little bridge over the Takase River to a retro bathhouse with SAUNA NO UMEYU painted in huge letters.

Kyoto has long had good, clean groundwater, and that makes its bathhouses special. Here, in a gathering place for the neighborhood since the Meiji era, I would wash away the fatigue of the year. Inside the noren, a beckoning cat and an old pendulum clock greeted me. I put my shoes in a locker and turned its wooden key.

The cold bath, said to use groundwater, was wonderful. Afterward I rested in the lounge facing a small courtyard garden, and when I stepped outside, Kyoto Tower stood in silhouette against the sunset. By night, the neon sign glowed over the Takase. Totonotta: body and mind, perfectly reset.

Now for the most important New Year preparation: making osechi. It was my first time. Since I was traveling, I bought the black beans and tazukuri sardines ready-made and kept everything else simple.

First, datemaki. I mixed mashed hanpen fish cake with eggs, poured the batter into a frying pan and cooked it under a lid. I halved a yuzu and scooped it out to make a little cup, and cut carrots into fine strips for red-and-white namasu.

Kamaboko, they say, evokes the first sunrise of the year, with the red standing for protection against evil and the white for purity. I slid it off its board, sliced it, scored the red skin and curled it into a loop. Every dish is made with a wish in it: such a lucky feast.

I rolled the finished datemaki up tight in a bamboo mat. When I sliced it, a neat spiral appeared in every piece; it looked remarkably like the real thing.

Osechi is said to be an offering to Toshigami, the deity welcomed at New Year, and also a custom that lets the god of the kitchen stove rest. It is a lovely part of Japanese culture, handed down from long ago.

Into black lacquered boxes went the datemaki and kamaboko, the namasu in its yuzu cup, and the black beans. The other tier held nishime, simmered vegetables: flower-cut lotus root, plum-blossom carrots and snow peas.

And then, the main event of New Year's Eve: toshikoshi soba, long, thin noodles eaten to cut away the year's bad luck and misfortune and to wish for a long life. This year I would make them myself. I never imagined I would one day try my hand at soba-making.

With the porch lamp lit, I made nihachi soba in the kitchen, from buckwheat flour mixed with wheat flour. Adding water bit by bit, I kneaded the dough by hand until it came together, pressed the ball flat with my palms, and rolled it out thin with a rolling pin.

Beginners probably fail often, I figured, so I went carefully. The creases made when you fold the thin sheet are one reason the noodles break, so I cut one sheet at a time to keep them from breaking at the folds. It takes effort, but time I had in abundance.

I brought plenty of water to a boil and dropped in the noodles. Here you go! In the big pot, the soba swirled as it cooked.

Rinsed in water and heaped on a bamboo tray: one seiro of soba, coming right up. I poured dipping sauce from a can into a cup, dipped the fresh noodles and slurped.

The result was not bad at all. They had a good bite, and with all the affection I had for them, they were delicious. Yes, soba is best freshly made.

I warmed a flask painted with a pufferfish in a pot of hot water, lifted it out wrapped in a cherry-blossom tenugui towel, and poured from a silver server into a little pufferfish cup.

Under the lid of the box, painted with golden plum blossoms: namasu in its yuzu cup, datemaki, red-and-white kamaboko, black beans and tazukuri. The other tier held the nishime. I took a little of each onto a small plate. The older I get, the more deeply I appreciate how good osechi is.

Grateful for another year spent happily. The street outside was quiet at night, a lamp glowing under the eaves. I wonder what kinds of life I will meet next year.

Since I started traveling, I have come to know the beauty of everyday life in so many towns. Here, looking back, are the seasons of Japan I have met along the way.

Cherry blossoms on a hill above the islands, a sunset caught in still water, the bench of a little station facing the sea, a tunnel that mirrors a gorge. Deep pink blossoms and daffodils, a bamboo grove reaching for the sky, stone steps lined with vermilion lanterns. Autumn's red maples and golden ginkgo; winter's snowy coast, and a lone stand of trees on a field of snow.

In 2024, too, I look forward to meeting ways of life and landscapes I have never seen. To the people I met on my travels, and to everyone who watched this journey with me: I wish you all a happy New Year.