And today I got something special for you.

I'm gonna go try and do some Mochitsuki.

So let's go check it out.

Mochitsuki is an important end-of-the-year tradition in which you pound rice into little mochi or rice cakes.

Making mochi is actually pretty easy.

So apparently before you actually pound the rice into mochi, you're are suppose to eat a little bit of it beforehand.

So, I'm going to try some of this mochi rice.

Tastes like rice.

A type of special sticky rice that's been soaked in water overnight and steamed is placed in an "usu," a large bowl made of wood or stone.

Then you use a heavy hammer-like "kine" to pound the rice into a paste.

The kine is heavy.

So when a family makes mochi together,

the father usually does the pounding with the mother regularly shifting the rice in the usu with hands moistened to prevent the mochi from sticking to ensure evenness.

The mother then shapes the pounded rice into small portions with the help of the children.

It's like a red bean paste soup with mochi inside of it.

Kinda wanna try some of the daikon, which is like a Japanese radish and soy sauce and seaweed.

I tried the red bean paste and the kinako, which is... I don't know how to explain that, but it's kind of a sweet, nutty kind of taste.

The daikon with the nori seaweed and soy-sauce one, I'm really looking forward to.

Just kinda put that on the top, I guess.

Grab a piece of nori.

Pour this on there, I guess?

I guess I'm suppose to wrap this around the mochi and kind of eat it like a mochi onigiri.

Or I believe that's what I saw someone else doing, so I'm going to try it.

I can understand why that's popular.

That's really, really good.

So, I just got done doing mochitsuki.

It was a lot of fun.

So, that's it for today's video.

If you want to see me do any other kind of events or experiences, please let me know. Until next time.