MOCHI Cake-Japanese New Year

Japanese New Year MOCHI Cake brings back a fond childhood memory.  Across from our home is TATAMIYA SAN - they are the TATAMI maker.  TATAMI is a special Japanese Flooring made from special straws.  The family is considered our 'block' leader because of their 'wealth'.  They also lead us in the MOCHI ZUKI on the Japanese New Year Day.  If you have never seen or involved with MOCHI ZUIKI, you might want to do some research on how this 'community' fan fare works out to ring in the new year.
Here at home, I used my sister's National brand MOCHI machine.  It is really amazing to watch this machine - after steaming the glutunous sweet rice, it starts to Pound the rice into this beautiful smooth MOCHI.
Reminder:  Work quickly and get some family members involved.  As MOCHI cools down, it hardens and become difficult to work with.  The Recipe is following the MOCHI machine's instruction.
So, here is my photo journal of making the MOCHI, an attempt with making the DAIFUKU Mochi, MOCHI CAKE, and MOCHI Senbei (Japanese cracker).