Akemasite omedetô!, Which has nothing to do with a fan of Johnny, who deplore the loss of his partner because "it threw me ah" is "good year! " (In fact congratulations to the dawn of the new year)
is one of the most important holidays in Japan, it lasts three days and the opportunity deee ...
go to the temple! That is good you start to dip the Japanese spirit.
I'm going to spend my Christmas Eve at the temple. The temple opens at midnight and according to tradition, the Japanese will go to pray and make offerings to force the luck in the new year.
For the occasion, towards the temple in Ueno. The largest temple is the Tokyo Meiji-jingu temple, which as its name does not indicate is NOT next to the station but Meijiro near Harajuku ... (I could inform myself but since in any case, more than one million people were expected at Meiji-jingu it us well arranged to go and hit closer to Ueno).
People start to arrive from 11:00 (pm) so come close to maturity there is a tail insane. Seen from the entrance of the temple
seen the scary side (the other end of the tail):
A t-5min, it there are so many behind. A t-5s, which means a statement just before, and it is midnight, but I guess people are especially pleased to be able to go inside. We advance in small packets (10 -15 minutes of ...), Police back the crowd with megaphones to tell us to move forward and Murphy's law requires, it is just stop before entering the temple is nice, but what he quail.
I do not know how many crs around Notre Dame for the midnight mass, but for once it's pretty impressive. Note also that the luminescence vests security officers is very effective in road safety and tracking, efficient enough to spoil me half of my pictures so there are agents everywhere. I'm on their vests can go into resonance and the maximum number of agents is determined for a guy surrounded can not ignite spontaneously.
Finally, we return:
Big crowd gathered in front of what I assume to be the altar, people send documents as an offering in the racks before and prayed, then the crowd is dispersed and distributed to various sectors of the temple. You can buy a ticket to enter the temple, actually, I do not know what the priests after, if the temple is open to the outside view, it is not elevated plain to see especially with the flow people.
People waiting to buy tickets. Arrows are the bearer of luck but I lack info on it.
The ema:
is writing a wish on a wooden plaque that is hung and that the gods can go read.
The omikuji:
These are predictions of good fortune or bad fortune that raffling. It draws omikuji important days and New Year is an important day. If it is a curse, we beseech by attaching a piece of paper to a pine sanctuary.
Go to the flickr link to a temple where we can see the tree. And thank you to wikipedia (and you'll also donate to wikipedia by the way) for technical support.
Among the people who go to the temple, there is a string of shops and greasy spoon that benefit from cold and late hour to sell at outrageous prices while full of good things that smell good and are interested, they are all vile tempting.
Sweets, pastries, soups, eggs, grilled ... and there was even a kebab .