Soba before New Year

According to the tradition, Japanese people eat Soba (buckwheat noodle) on New Year’s Night, right before 12 o’clock. It has something to do with an old time link between the plant that Soba is made of, and gold.
This year, I’ve celebrated the New Year in the traditional Japanese way: I had Soba right before midnight, followed by a midnight visit to the local Buddhist Temple and Japanese Shrine. It was beautiful and quite different than the “party-all-night” I used to celebrate New Years in the past.