Advent of Ascending Kanji - Day 15 
Fifteen stroke kanji: 餅
Mochi rice cake
Kun: もち; もちい
On: へイ; ヒョウ
Mmmm, mochi
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Today I read 桜の樹の下には by 梶井基次郎 today along with this 朗読. I liked it a lot! It was mildly eerie, but I also like that it got straight to the point 
It was written in 1928, so a bit of older language to deal with but honestly nothing too bad.
I think this is the one you were curious about @omk3 ? I’d say give it a try if you think you have the time and energy for some older writing! It’s only 5 pages and the 朗読 is <7 minutes. I’d place this as easier than 人間椅子 for reference.
Edit: I looked at the BookMeter reviews:
また変なものを読んでしまった。
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Yes, that’s the one! Glad to hear the language is not too hard. And that it’s mildly eerie. Probably not eerie enough for Halloween then?
That review though! 
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Dec16
Kanji in Ascending Stroke Order
Strokes:16
興
Kun: おこ.る、 おこ.す
On: コウ、 キョウ
Words of the day: 興ざめ (spoiled fun; loss of interest; damper (e.g. on the party)), 一興 (amusement, brief entertainment), 興信所 (detective agency), 秋興 (the pleasantness of autumn), 興収 (box office revenue)
興 means entertain, revive, retrieve, interest, pleasure. It’s a Jōyō kanji taught in grade 5, JLPT level N1 and WK level 32.
Short video of someone writing it with a brush pen:
Here’s the stroke order:
Stroke order with notes:
And variations:
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5x5mm, 0.4mm Pilot G-TEC-C4
I think I heard somewhere that 0.4mm is a fairly usual pen-tip size in Japan, and that fine, medium, bold all refer to slightly thinner line width in Japan than the same labels do in Europe/North America (idk about other parts of the world).
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Japanese Advent Calendar 2022 – Day 16
December 16th
Today’s Kanji:
錦
Kun’yomi: にしき
On’yomi: キン
Meaning: brocade, fine dress, honors
興
Kun’yomi: おこ.る, おこ.す
On’yomi: コウ, キョウ
Meaning: entertain, revive, retrieve, interest, pleasure
Kanji writing
Kanji writing practice
Ah, there it is, the Kanji that made me question my English vocabulary knowledge, the Kodansha Kanji learner’s course Kanji learning order (it’s number 213 out of 2300), and my sanity. 
It is the one and only brocade.
If you have no idea what (a) brocade is, welcome to the club. I didn’t know either until I looked it up some years ago when I learned it.
Brocade Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
Apparently, it’ll appear in the last ten levels of WK but I’m not looking forward to seeing it again because it’s a somewhat useless Kanji for me – unless I decide to stitch things for a living, or become a fashion designer or film requisite maker in Japan or something. 
Sorry, I couldn’t stop myself from venting a little bit because this Kanji is among my least favourite Kanji I’ve come across. It’s just so oddly specific.
Anyways, I was also contemplating picking 興 – so I did. 
That’s why today’s practice contains both, one of my nemeses and a truly neat looking Kanji.
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December 16
Kanji writing
Origami
Song
Mystery book reading
Origami
This lady explains everything remarkably well, I found. I had tried to make lucky stars before, and it had been a spectacular failure. This time I understood how to do it, and found it easy and even addictive. Thank you, ばぁばさん！
This makes perfect sense to me. In fact, I just realized that this super thin marker brand I’ve been using for years is actually Japanese. 
this one
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day 16
TRUMP - vampire school, basically. picked cos of the cover, cos it’s 
some old-fashioned language (tho not as much as i was expecting), found it a little difficult to follow what was going on, partly cos it’s quite fragmented and slow going but mostly cos i’m really bad with faces (of which there were many) and names (of which there were few). interesting tho, the sample almost felt too short like it was just getting going by the time it cut off (more so than the other stuff i’ve read)
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Day 16
New story for me. My daughter received five small boxes of 日本昔話 that her おばあちゃん had received from her mother. Had to rush read through this one so I’ll have to go back through slower to get more of the story. There was a witch and a boy from a temple who didn’t listen to his master, he hid in a toilet to escape the witch, supposedly learned his lesson.
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Advent of Ascending Kanji - Day 16
Sixteen stroke kanji: 曇
Cloudy Weather; cloud up
Kun: くも.る
On: ドン
More lines means more things can go wrong
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I’m having crazy dejavu right now. Today’s reading was ねずみの嫁入り by 楠山正雄 but I swear I read a variation of this story super recently. It doesn’t seem to be any of the ones in this challenge though…? Am I going crazy? Why do I already know this story? 
Oh, easier children’s story by the way. Should be relatively beginner friendly!
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Forgot to answer this! It feels too short and insubstantial to be a stand alone Halloween read. Perhaps if you had several similar short stories? I’m wracking my brain to think of Aozora spooky reads and all I’ve got is 幽霊 (another 乱歩 short), セメント樽の中の手紙, and 雪女. That middle one is probably more depressing than spooky though.
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Dec17
Kanji in Ascending Stroke Order
Strokes:17
鍵
Kun: かぎ
On: ケン
Words of the day: 鍵盤 (keyboard (of a piano, typewriter, etc.)), 合鍵 (master key, passkey, duplicate key), 鍵垢 (private account (on social media, esp. Twitter); account that can only be viewed by approved followers)
Today’s kanji means, very simply, key. It’s a Jōyō kanji taught in junior high. Apparently it’s not in JLPT, but I run across it in novels all the time. In WK it’s level 46.
Here’s the stroke order:
And variations:
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Haha I just learned that yesterday! Was a bit confused at first (a tray full of keys??) but when I looked it up it became clear! (Didn’t really help that the context was not piano but virginals, a medieval instrument 
)
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I can see myself wondering the same thing if I came across it randomly. In what book are you reading about medieval instruments?! Oh, is it the one with the pirates?
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Dang, how did you guess that!
It’s about time I started talking about other books, I guess 
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