{"id":51,"date":"2009-01-06T05:56:36","date_gmt":"2009-01-06T12:56:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.audreyy.com\/?p=51"},"modified":"2009-01-06T05:56:36","modified_gmt":"2009-01-06T12:56:36","slug":"2008-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.audreyy.com\/?p=51","title":{"rendered":"2008 > 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"

After flying back to Tokyo on December 30th, I met up with some friends in Tokyo for a “countdown” visit to Meiji Shrine.\u00c2\u00a0 The first shrine visit of the year is “hatsumode” and since Meiji Shrine is the biggest one in Tokyo, it’s also the busiest.<\/p>\n

The street leading to the shrine was lined with vendors selling street food, like okonimiyaki, yakisoba, amazake, and doner kebab.\u00c2\u00a0 Very traditional, that kebab.\u00c2\u00a0 Smelled delicious though, unlike the foully weird amazake we tried. Ick.\u00c2\u00a0 As my throat was a little sore, I grabbed a star shaped lollipop to keep me busy as we waited in line.
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As expected, even the crazy crowds were well managed, and unexpectedly, police and boy scouts were out in full force to guide people through.\u00c2\u00a0 For some unhappy reason, the boy scouts were wearing short sleeved uniforms, and largely looked miserable.\u00c2\u00a0 We witnessed them change shifts though, so at least they were taking turns at catching colds.
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The way it worked, chunks of about 200 people each were separated by carriers of big signs that said “please wait” or “please walk.”\u00c2\u00a0 At appropriate times, the sign carrier would turn the sign, and we would obediently shuffle or stop.
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Even though we were in the middle of a huge crowd (group 8 of who knows how many) when midnight actually struck, things were surprisingly calm.\u00c2\u00a0 We weren’t close enough to see into the actual shrine at midnight, but the organizers had kindly set up a big tv screen for us all to see the drum being hit (108 times for 108 sins?) by a serious looking priestly fellow.\u00c2\u00a0 People exchanged congratulations and hugged each other, but it really wasn’t noisy at all.\u00c2\u00a0 About ten seconds after the drumming started, some group of distant English speaking foreigners were heard counting “ten, nine, eight…woo!” but that was about it as far as ruckus.
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This video illustrates the second-to-last-shuffle before we got to throw coins around.\u00c2\u00a0 Apparently there was a weird guy at my elbow, but as I was busy video-ing, I fortuitously avoided noticing him.<\/p>\n

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Having tossed our own coins, we went shopping! Sort of.\u00c2\u00a0 While there were tons of omamori on sale (luck charms for things like travel, love, study, wealth) to replace the previous year’s charms (which conveniently expire in a year and become un-lucky), most people, including us, just wanted to grab a fortune.\u00c2\u00a0 To get the omikuji you shake a box and draw out a stick, which has a number.\u00c2\u00a0 The attendant hands you the corresponding slip of paper, and off you go.\u00c2\u00a0 The only problem is that these particular fortunes come in the form of classic poetry, meaning that even native Japanese speakers have difficulty deciphering them.\u00c2\u00a0 With the help of a dictionary, and confirmation from a friend, my year is apparently meant to be a year of “silence,” in the sense that I should avoid overdoing things, especially words.\u00c2\u00a0 Same thing my mom’s been telling me that from kindergarten.\u00c2\u00a0 Sigh.<\/p>\n

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The best part of this whole experience?\u00c2\u00a0 While taking my camera out of my pocket, I lost one of my gloves.\u00c2\u00a0 Earlier I’d lost a pair to the JR counter, so I was a little annoyed and sad to also mess up my backup pair. But with the crowding, there was no way I could go backwards, let alone take time to inspect the ground (or even see it).\u00c2\u00a0 My one slim hope was a ten second window as the crowd thinned between my wave of coin tossers and the next.\u00c2\u00a0 That was assuming that I’d dropped it in the last ten feet, of course.\u00c2\u00a0 Anything before that and, well…gone for good.\u00c2\u00a0 As the people cleared, I hopefully scanned the gray stones for a swatch of black. Alas, no glove to be found.\u00c2\u00a0 The next group was shuffling, eager to get their wishes in.\u00c2\u00a0 A policewoman politely but firmly “encouraged” us all to exit.\u00c2\u00a0 I turned in resigned despair, then noticed that in addition to a megaphone, the woman held a lone glove in one hand.\u00c2\u00a0 Awesomeness.\u00c2\u00a0 Glove recovered, bows, \u00e3\u201a\u02c6\u00e3\u0081\u2039\u00e3\u0081\u00a3\u00e3\u0081\u0178\u00ef\u00bc\u0081(Thank goodness!)\u00c2\u00a0 and \u00e3\u0081\u201a\u00e3\u201a\u0160\u00e3\u0081\u0152\u00e3\u0081\u00a8\u00e3\u0081\u2020\u00ef\u00bc\u0081(Thank you!)\u00c2\u00a0 exchanged, the cold somehow wasn’t quite so harsh anymore.\u00c2\u00a0Happy new year, folks.<\/p>\n

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After flying back to Tokyo on December 30th, I met up with some friends in Tokyo for a “countdown” visit to Meiji Shrine.\u00c2\u00a0 The first shrine visit of the year is “hatsumode” and since Meiji Shrine is the biggest one in Tokyo, it’s also the busiest. The street leading to the shrine was lined with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9WqcV-P","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.audreyy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.audreyy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.audreyy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.audreyy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.audreyy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.audreyy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.audreyy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.audreyy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.audreyy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}