Hope you had a wonderful festive season.
Thank you for visiting my blog throughout 2021. Thinking there are people (like you!) cooking my recipes somewhere in the world…, this feeling is certainly special for me. Very much grateful…
A usual, we started our 2022 with Osechi – Japanese Traditional New Year’s Food. As New Year’s Day is the most important day of the year in Japan and Osechi is a big part of the celebration (read here for more information), I love starting the year in this way. This year, my mum sent us her New Year Special box by sea since the EMS service between Japan and Australia has not started yet (due to COVID, of course…). Thanks to my mum, I could prepare more elements for Osechi than last year.
When I look back on 2021, I would say that 2021 was my Year of Flamenco. I was so fortunate to be invited to perform at several gigs last year. I feel privileged that there are people around who decided to spend some of their time (and sometimes money) to see us performing what we love. While I enjoyed all of the gigs, the highlight was a Christmas party at the local tennis club. Some might say that it was just another gig, but for me, it was a huge achievement. I had to dance with the professional musicians who are very well-known locally and we rarely get a change to work with. I was quite nervous as they will see (and I will know) if I was not “doing Flamenco”. Long story short, I did it right. I did bring Flamenco to the audience with these pros. After several years of training, I felt I might finally get to the start line of this beautiful art form. There is still so much to learn, but I am looking forward to it.
Actually, our own show ¡el FLAMENCO! at FRINGE WORLD FESTIVAL will start in 2 weeks! We are so ready and so excited. Details here. If you are in Perth during the time, pop in to say hello to me!
In February this year, it will have been 2 years since we caught up with my family in Japan. Since we normally go back to Japan every second year, we were so confident at the time that this COVID thing would not affect our regular meeting schedule. It is funny that we are still in this strange situation. While Australia is trying to open its border, now Japan has closed its international border…. Very hard to predict what will happen and very difficult to plan for the future. The bottom line is, we all have to be healthy so that we can catch up again without any worries and hesitations.
Wishing you all a very safe and healthy 2022 .
A Little Bit of Soy 