No harm trying this in Jiufen.
source
Dumplings with sweet or salty filling. We chose one filled with preserved vegetables. Not sure why it had a funny green colour, but the texture was good, just the right shade of chewy but soft. Taste came mostly from the filling (a lot of it). We only tried this because there were loads of people queuing at the stall but were happy with the experiment. Worth a try!
阿è˜å®‡ç²¿/è�‰ä»”粿 Ah Lan Hakka Glutinous Rice Cake. å�°åŒ—縣瑞芳鎮基山街90號, 90 Jishan st.
No harm trying this in Jiufen.
source
Dumplings with sweet or salty filling. We chose one filled with preserved vegetables. Not sure why it had a funny green colour, but the texture was good, just the right shade of chewy but soft. Taste came mostly from the filling (a lot of it). We only tried this because there were loads of people queuing at the stall but were happy with the experiment. Worth a try!
阿è˜å®‡ç²¿/è�‰ä»”粿 Ah Lan Hakka Glutinous Rice Cake. å�°åŒ—縣瑞芳鎮基山街90號, 90 Jishan st.
Sweet potato and yam dumplings at Ah Gan Yee, one of the most popular dessert shop in Jiufen, always a long queue. A favourite amongst the girls, it was again a perfect mixture of soft and chewy.
Jiufen in northern Taiwan was ranked the No. 1 scenic spot by inbound visitors for the third consecutive year in 2011, according to a survey released by the ROC Tourism Bureau Aug. 4.
The old mining town, which gained fame through its role in director Hou Hsiao-hsien’s “A City of Sadness” in the 1980s, was followed in popularity by Taroko Gorge, Tianxiang and Sun Moon Lake. Alishan and Yeliu tied for fifth, while the National Palace Museum, Longshan Temple, Danshui, Ximending and Taipei 101 rounded out the top 10.
Taiwan’s scenery, food, and customs and culture were the main attractions bringing tourists to the nation, according to the poll.
Japanese visitors came mainly to enjoy local cuisine, while travelers from Australia, the EU, mainland China, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the U.S. were most interested in the scenery.
The survey also indicated that 50 percent of those interviewed were most impressed by local people’s friendliness and hospitality, followed by 42 percent who were most taken by the gourmet food, and 33 percent by night markets.
It was found that the average daily expenditure for Japanese tourists was US$430.53, US$128.43 higher than the average for all incoming travelers. Mainland Chinese visitors spent a daily average of US$266.35.
Many traditional customs are observed at the beginning of the new year in Japan. For example, entrances to homes and shops are decorated with the pine and bamboo kadomatsu decoration or shimenawa braided straw ropes, a custom with its roots in the Shinto religion. It’s also the time of year when people enjoy mochi soft rice cakes and osechi-ryori, the traditional foods associated with New Year celebrations. These customs derive from harvest thanksgiving rituals developed over the centuries by the Japanese, who were mainly engaged in farming then, and from ancient religious ceremonies. Each of these practices is imbued with meaning, and experiencing a traditional Japanese New Year will surely be the highlight of your stay.
Japanese consider December 31 a very important day, and it’s not unusual for people to stay up all night on this occasion. Old customs related to the last day of the year continue in many regions of Japan, but one of the most popular, which started in the Edo period (1603–1868), is eating soba buckwheat noodles. People eat soba on December 31, either for dinner or as an evening snack, to wish for a life that’s as long as the long, skinny noodles they’re eating. Eating soba past midnight, however, is to be avoided as this is believed to bring bad luck. 
As midnight nears, the air is filled with the deep sound of temple bells being rung. The bells are rung 108 times as the old year fades out and the new year comes in. One explanation for the bell-ringing is that this is done to forswear the 108 human desires. Some temples allow ordinary people to ring their bells. Try it if you have the opportunity.
In Japan, sunrise on New Year’s Day is believed to have special supernatural powers, and praying to the first sunrise of the year has become a popular practice since the Meiji era (1868–1912). Even today, crowds gather on mountaintops or beaches with good views of the sunrise to pray for health and family wellbeing in the new year.
Another custom still observed today is visiting a temple or shrine at New Year’s. Even people who do not ordinarily go to shrines or temples in everyday life go at New Year’s to pray for their health and their families’ happiness. Many young women take this opportunity to dress up in vividly colored kimono, a touch that adds to the festive atmosphere. When praying at a Shinto shrine, the usual way is to bow twice, clap hands twice, and then bow once more. At a Buddhist temple, one simply places the palms of the hands together in silent prayer, with no clapping.
Meiji Shrine in Harajuku is Tokyo’s best-known spot for paying a New Year’s visit to a Shinto shrine. For years, Meiji Shrine has attracted the largest number of New Year’s visitors in Japan. From December 31 through the first few days of the new year, crowds here number in the hundreds of thousands.
Buddhist temples with large numbers of New Year’s visitors are Narita-san Shinsho-ji, which is near Narita Airport, and Kawasaki Daishi, in Kawasaki, adjacent to Tokyo. On their visits, shrine- and temple-goers pray for good luck, protection from traffic accidents, or to ward off evil fortune.
A few days after Christmas, the entrances to many homes, stores and buildings in Japan are decorated with a pine and bamboo kadomatsu. This decoration is prepared to welcome the Shinto gods and derives from the Shinto belief that the god spirits reside in trees. Furthermore, the display of pine, which stays green even in winter, and bamboo, which grows quickly and is ramrod-straight, expresses the desire to obtain virtue and strength to overcome adversity.
Entrances to ordinary homes are decorated with a shimenawa braided straw rope. Like the kadomatsu, it signifies that the home has been purified in order to welcome the gods.
After the New Year’s Eve temple bells have sounded and the first temple or shrine visit of the new year is made, many people return home to eat the o-sechi traditional foods at a meal for the whole family. O-sechi foods were originally offerings to the Shinto gods, but they are also “lucky” foods intended to bring happiness to the family. Each of the ingredients has a special significance, and the foods are prepared so that they will keep over the entire New Year period, which lasts nearly a week (Preparing foods that will keep for a while was also, in the past, intended to reduce work for housewives).
Many hotels and ryokan in Japan serve o-sechi menus for the first three days of the new year. It’s also worth checking out special New Year accommodation plans, which include traditional entertainment such as koto (Japanese harp) and shishi-mai lion dance performances, to add ambience and make a stay in Japan at New Year’s unforgettable. 
New Year in Japan is a time of year when this modern, high-tech country goes back to custom and tradition.
In past years, it was customary for many stores, businesses and places of interest to close for a holiday over the year-end and New Year, but now many places are open even on New Year’s Day. But to avoid disappointment, checking the website of the places you are interested in visiting over New Year’s is recommended. For example, if you’re thinking of visiting museums, you may find this web directory in English helpful.
Mount Takao, one of Japan’s most popular mountains right now, is just an hour away from Tokyo Station by JR Chuo Line express train, or 50 minutes from Shinjuku Station on the Keio Line. Climbing Mount Takao overnight to reach the summit on New Year’s Day promises a fine adventure.
The lift and cable car from the foothills up to the middle of the mountain operate around the clock from December 31 to January 1. The walk to the top of Mount Takao takes about 40 minutes from the lift or cable car station. Yakuo-in Temple, located along the way, begins a Buddhist prayer ceremony at midnight, giving the environs a solemn atmosphere.
From there, join the throng of people making their way to the top of the mountain, 599 meters above sea level, and wait for sunrise with the crowds at the lookout. Around 6:30 a.m., the priests from Yakuo-in conduct a “festival to welcome the light” at the mountain-top prayer hall, and the crowds shout for joy as the sun rises to the chanting of sutras. And with luck, you might even be able to see Mount Fuji from the top of the mountain.
On your way down the mountain, be sure to stop by Yakuo-in to pay your respects. Yakuo-in is one of Tokyo’s most revered temples, and if you pray for good fortune, you are sure to have a good year ahead of you.
Yasaka Shrine, in Kyoto’s Gion area, is the site of the Okera Festival, which starts from around 7:30 p.m. on December 31 and goes on through January 1. This traditional ritual consists of burning thin slats of wood onto which people have written their wishes. Shrine-goers then light a straw rope from the fire, which they twirl to keep the end of the rope glowing and take home with them. This rope is then used to ignite the fire at home, over which zoni, a soup served at New Year that contains mochi rice cakes and other ingredients, is prepared, to protect the family from illness and disaster in the coming year. Tourists can’t take a smoldering rope back home, but they can partake of the okera sake served until the early hours of the New Year to pray for good fortune.
Before daybreak, visitors can move to Kyoto Tower, located near Kyoto Station, to welcome the first sunrise of the year. On New Year’s Day only, Kyoto Tower is open to visitors from 6:30 a.m. It’s the perfect spot to enjoy the Japanese New Year and get a great view of the city.
Omikuji—Pick Your Fortune for the Year
One of the “musts” of a New Year visit to a temple or shrine is buying an omikuji fortune. Written on a thin roll or strip of paper, the omikuji tells your fortune in various grades ranging from great blessing to ill luck, and comes with detailed explanations concerning your prospects in health, love, money matters and so on. Some omikuji, rather than telling your fortune, contain a poem that comes with an explanation of a moral.
With more international visitors also going to shrines or temples now, many omikuji are available in English. At Kushida Shrine in Fukuoka, or at Kyoto’s Kinkaku-ji Temple, omikuji written in Korean or Chinese are also for sale. Will you try your luck and see what your fortune will be?
Lu Rong, office worker, China
The other day a Chinese friend called me wondering whether she should plan her visit to Japan over New Year’s or the Chinese New Year. When I suggested that her trip would be more memorable if she were in Japan on January first, because she could experience the Japanese New Year’s shrine visit, she was curious to know what was so interesting. She thought that the first shrine visit of the year in Japan must be like the temple visit during Chinese New Year, called shao tou xiang. I couldn’t help laughing since I had had the same idea myself many years ago. On the contrary, my New Year’s visit to a shrine in Japan was a novel and extraordinary experience. I will never forget it.
Around the time I first arrived in Japan, a friend and I paid a New Year’s visit to Yabo Shrine, dedicated to the god of academic success, to pray for acceptance into university. Even though it was early in the morning, a long line had already formed in front of the shrine. Winters in Japan are cold, and we rubbed our hands together and watched our breath form white plumes as the line slowly moved forward. Suddenly the aroma of grilling meat wafted toward us from out of the blue. I looked around to find out where it was coming from and discovered food stalls lined up near the shrine’s torii gate. I couldn’t believe there were stalls selling food within the shrine grounds, and I was even more surprised to see people cooking dishes with meat such as okonomiyaki (savory pancake) and yakisoba (stir-fried noodles) and selling alcohol such as Japanese sake (rice wine) and amazake (sweet sake), which are forbidden at temples in China. What would Chinese monks think if they saw this?
Resisting the tempting aromas, we made our way through the torii and finally arrived at the main shrine. I looked into the shrine to get a glimpse of the deity’s image housed inside, but didn’t find anything. Seeing my confusion, my friend explained that the image of the shrine’s deity is not displayed out in the open. I was utterly mystified. Putting my hands together in front of the main shrine, I pledged to study hard and prayed from my heart to gain admission to university.
Ways to honor the divine differ enormously from one country to the next. However, I believe as long as you are diligent and have a pious heart, your prayers will be answered. By the way, that year I got into the university of my choice. If my friend is in Japan this New Year’s Day, I will definitely encourage her to visit a shrine.
There are many other customs related to New Year’s in addition to those described above. Go to the link below to learn more about typically Japanese ways of enjoying the New Year.
http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/indepth/history/experience/ab.html
Mochi is a traditional part of the celebration,
video.
The Japanese New Year (sh�gatsu) is one of the most important annual festivals, with its own unique customs, and has been celebrated for centuries. Due to the importance of the holiday and the preparations required, the preceding days are quite busy, particularly the day before, known as Ōmisoka.
The Japanese New Year has been celebrated since 1873 according to the Gregorian calendar, on January 1 of each year (New Year's Day where the Gregorian calendar is used).
History
Prior to the Meiji Period, the date of the Japanese New Year was based on the Chinese lunar calendar, as are the contemporary Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese New Years. However, in 1873, five years after the Meiji Restoration, Japan adopted the Gregorian calendar and the first day of January became the official and cultural New Year's Day.
Traditional food
Japanese people eat a special selection of dishes during the New Year celebration called osechi-ry�ri, typically shortened to osechi. This consists of boiled seaweed, fish cakes, mashed sweet potato with chestnut, simmered burdock root, and sweetened black soybeans. Many of these dishes are sweet, sour, or dried, so they can keep without refrigeration-the culinary traditions date to a time before households had refrigerators, when most stores closed for the holidays. There are many variations of osechi, and some foods eaten in one region are not eaten in other places (or are considered unfortunate or even banned) on New Year's Day. Another popular dish is oz�ni, a soup with omochi and other ingredients that differ based on various regions of Japan. Today, sashimi and sushi are often eaten, as well as non-Japanese foods. To let the overworked stomach rest, seven-herb rice soup is prepared on the seventh day of January, a day known as jinjitsu.
Bell Ringing
At midnight on December 31, Buddhist temples all over Japan ring their bells a total of 108 times to symbolize the 108 human sins in Buddhist belief, and to get rid of the 108 worldly desires regarding sense and feeling in every Japanese citizen. A major attraction is The Watched Night bell, in Tokyo. Japanese believe that the ringing of bells can rid off their sins during the previous year. After they are done ringing the bells, they celebrate and feast on soba noodles.
Mochi
Another custom is creating rice cakes. Boiled sticky rice is put into a wooden shallow bucket-like container and patted with water by one person while another person hits it with a large wooden mallet. Mashing the rice, it forms a sticky white dumpling. This is made before New Year's Day and eaten during the beginning of January.
Mochi is made into a New Year's decoration called kagami mochi, formed from two round cakes of mochi with a bitter orange placed on top. The name daidai is supposed to be auspicious since it means "several generations."
Because of mochi's extremely sticky texture, there is usually a small number of choking deaths around New Year in Japan, particularly amongst the elderly. The death toll is reported in newspapers in the days after New Year.
-Wikipedia
Remember one year i visited my friend home during the New Year time, outside cold and snowing, so nothing to do, only activities watching television programe,
like this year .... http://www.tokyohive.com/tag/the-63rd-nhk-kohaku-uta-gassen/
So do you know what is this?
from Jiufen
Besides the sweet taro tapioca balls, the steamed mugwort cake and steamed taro cake are great choices. They were the snacks of miners in the olden days. The steamed mugwort cake is made with dry glutinous rice dough mixed with the ground cooked paste of jersey cudweed or mugwort, with stuffing including pickles, salted mung beans, sweet jumby beans, or salted radish. The steamed taro cake is made with shrimp, fried scallion and solid diced taro stuffing. Both are available from many shops in Jishan Street and are the most representative mementos of Jiufen. A-Lan Steamed Mugwort Cake is the most famous shop.
So what is Mugwort cake so famous fro Jiufen.
To flavor the rice cake, Chinese mugwort (Artemisia argyi) is used:
No harm trying this in Jiufen.
source
Dumplings with sweet or salty filling. We chose one filled with preserved vegetables. Not sure why it had a funny green colour, but the texture was good, just the right shade of chewy but soft. Taste came mostly from the filling (a lot of it). We only tried this because there were loads of people queuing at the stall but were happy with the experiment. Worth a try!
阿è˜å®‡ç²¿/è�‰ä»”粿 Ah Lan Hakka Glutinous Rice Cake. å�°åŒ—縣瑞芳鎮基山街90號, 90 Jishan st.
Sweet potato and yam dumplings at Ah Gan Yee, one of the most popular dessert shop in Jiufen, always a long queue. A favourite amongst the girls, it was again a perfect mixture of soft and chewy.
Come to Jiufen, remember to see this.
sourceShenping Theater
At the side of Jiufen’s Shuqi Street is the Shenping Theater, a place filled with many memories for local residents. Squeezed in between two larger buildings, the now quaint, 80-year-old theater, originally built by the Japanese is still as impressive as it was in the days, when it was the first modern theater in all of northern Taiwan.
The Shenping Theater was renovated in 1951 and screened Beijing operas, foreign silent films, and Japanese and local black-and-white films until 1986, when it finally had to be closed down. Even though visitors can no longer go inside to watch a film, it remains one of the most-photographed sites in Jiufen.
Japan New Year every houses sure got this...KuriKinton.
Kurikinton(sweet potatoes with sweet chestnuts): Part of the traditional Japanese New Year meals (osechi-ryouri) is the kurikinton. This simple dish is eaten sometime within the first three days of the new year. The sweet potatoes (which are a little different than the sweet potatoes we consume in the West) are boiled along with jasmine seeds for flavor. The seeds are then removed the and sweet potatoes are mashed along with some sugar. The mixture is then mixed with sweet chestnuts in syrup and simmered on low heat for a few minutes.
Kuri kinton is a heavenly dish made from candied chestnuts and mashed Japanese sweet potatoes mixed with the syrup from the candied chestnuts.
It’s my favorite part of the Japanese New Year food lineup. Kuri kinton is a beautiful golden color, the symbol of wealth.
Recipe as shared by my friend Noriko
Makes 6 to 8 servings
1 pound satsumaimo (Japanese sweet potatoes)
7 ounce bottle of kuri kanroni (candied chestnuts in syrup)
pinch of salt
mirin
sugar
1. Peel the sweet potatoes then cut them into one-inch slices and soak them in a large bowl of water for 6 to 7 hours.
2. Boil the sweet potatoes until very tender. Mash them with a fork and then push the mashed sweet potato through a sieve to remove any lumps or fiber.
3. Put the mashed sweet potato into a small pot. Add the syrup from the bottle of candied chestnuts, along with a pinch of salt, and cook the mixture over low heat. Add mirin and sugar in equal amounts if the mixture looks too dry. The kuri kinton will stiffen slightly once cooled, so be sure to take this into account when decided how much liquid to add.
4. Continue cooking over low heat, stirring to make sure the mixture doesn’t burn, until it has a slightly glossy look to it. Add the candied chestnuts and cook for several more minutes to heat through and then let cool.
Hold on to your hats, because the next few days are going to be a whirlwind of posts to get you ready for the New Year, Japanese style! As I mentioned in my post about tai no shioyaki last week, osechi-ryori are traditional Japanese New Year foods. Today I’m going to share some of my favorites with you. Not only are they delicious, but they are all super easy to prepare.
My first experience with osechi was on January 2nd of 2003. Mr. Fuji and I were living in Japan and I was experiencing my first Japanese New Year. I remember staying up late on New Year’s Eve to watch Japanese news, which showed footage of a famous temple (I can’t remember which now) in Japan where at midnight they performed joyano-kane or “night-watch bell,” ringing the temple bells 108 times to symbolize freeing the faithful from the 108 “earthly desires” enumerated in the Buddhist canon, thus freeing the coming year from evil. I remember walking around our neighborhood during the New Year holidays and seeing groups of men, with strips of cloth twisted and tied around their heads swinging wooden mallets to hit steamed rice in large barrels to make mochi. One of the days we visited Senso-ji temple in Tokyo and enjoyed okonomiyaki andjyaga bata (Japanese style baked potatoes) from the food stalls set up around the temple grounds.
But one of the most memorable experiences of that New Year was the invitation to go and enjoy a traditional osechi meal at the home of one of my students and his wife (I was teaching English at the time). The whole meal was colorful and elaborately styled, filled with foods I had never seen before that teased my palate as I tried to make sense of what I was tasting. They explained that each item had a special meaning represented in the shape, color, or pronunciation of the name of the food, that symbolized good luck, happiness, longevity, or some other auspicious wish for the coming year. Everything was delicious, but some of the items that really stuck out in my mind are the dishes that I’m sharing with you today.
I asked my sweet friend Noriko if she would share some of her osechi recipes with me. I figured it would be way more fun to share family recipes. I keep telling Noriko that she needs to start a food blog, and she always laughs. So until she does, I’m going to keep sharing her recipes when I get them, because they are alwaysdelicious!
My jubako (special stacking boxes used to store and present osechi in) is a lucky find from a consignment store trip right before we moved back to the US. It makes me happy pulling it out to use it!
I filled it with 4 dishes to share with you:
Check out each post to learn more about these dishes and their meaning and get the recipe!
So Jiufen...this all about, should be coming to an end.
