Happy New Year, indeed

I finished reading "Slaughterhouse Five," such a funny, strange, and strangely-touching novel, by Kurt Vonnegut, I would say for me one of top five writers to die for, and watched New Year sunrise over frosted field in New Paltz. Watching sunrise is one of the common things we do in Japan to celebrate New Year after all night of partying. It's a remarkably beautiful moment when that first ray shoots at us across the ocean and we cheer on freezing beach. I really didn't meant to do that this year. I just woke up before dawn. And I decided to see the sunrise. It's New Year. Perfect.

A few hours later, I found it published online. SOY was in the New York Times. This happening on New Year's Day was way super auspicious in Japanese standard. I knew it was coming, since they sent the photographer and fact-checking emails were coming in from the Times, and I was so nervous, and that's probably why I was up so early that morning. And it turned out to be a sweet story. My friends were in tears. I spent too much time on Facebook that morning.
So it's been busy since I came back, cooking non-stop, literally. And meeting lots more people. So "stop being sad," a message from Taiyo says.

So some more of our endeavors during our vacation food-wise: Neko Sushi in New Paltz- Neko means a cat in Japanese so Taiyo wanted to go there, of course. Food wasn't terrible but something you can expect from a Japanese restaurant owned by Chinese. Sorry, but we are not really same people, and that's that.

We loved this place: Bridge Creek Cafe. Nice casual friendly place with fresh and honest food. Tasty seasoned pop-corn on the table.

New Year's Day. Lunch at New Paltz's classic P&G. When we arrived, the front of this bar was lined with Harleys. Taiyo tasted New England cram chowder and said, "It looks so gross, but so yummy!"

Then we had some heavy bar food. A crabcake sandwich for me. It was so tasty but got serious weight. It really didn't look that way. When the waitress asked me if we wanted to pack up the rest, I said no. I just wanted to ran away from it.

Another cute gem in New Paltz, Village Tea Room, where we had breakfast before heading back. It's a little house. Full of character. Great fresh food and inexpensive. Taiyo loved the oatmeal and smashed down the corn muffin, literally.

So all was good. Excellent. Look at this smile.