If you are in Japan during the year-end and New Year holidays, you can see many pretty sweets at Japanese confectionary stores. As 2021 is the year of Ox according to the Chinese zodiac, we ate buns filled with sweet bean paste like these today. In most cases, such buns (called manju) are vegan, however, yellowish buns may contain egg as the one on the right. They represented oxen but looked like pigs. I just wanted to upload the picture because they were cute anyway. Happy New Year!
