New Years shrine visit.

(Austin)

    We spent January 1st recovering from our long Tokyo trip, but New Years is a very important event in Japan. Everyone goes to a local shrine and prays for good fortune and protection in the new year. It is less a religious event these days and more of a cultural ritual. 

  

    Our Japanese friend Ryosuke invited to join him to go to a shrine on January 2nd. We traveled to a shrine in Kyoto whose name escapes me.. Sorry, I forgot the name. Anyways, as you can see in the pictures there were many people there looking for good fortune in the new year. After waiting in line you reach the front of the shrine where you will see ropes hanging from the ceiling and a deposit box in front of you. You deposit some money, typically a 5¥ coin (a nickle), ring the bells attached to the hanging rope, clap, pray, and then bow.

An example of the above description.

    After presenting our offer for good fortune in the good year we decided to find out our luck. At shrines and temples usually offer a way to find out by way of randomly selecting a stick. There is a big containing that contains hundreds of thin sticks. Each of these sticks in numbered. You shake the containing and a stick will slide out through the small whole in the bottom. After receiving your stick, you memorize the number and put the stick back into the containing. Nearby will be a shrine worker that you can exchange the number for your luck fortune, usually for 100¥ ($1). They have a range that you'd normally expect: Horrible luck and Fantastic luck and everything in-between. The papers also detail what you'll have success with in the new year and what actions you should be wary of. Often messages will detail things like "good luck with language studies", "neutral luck with love", "bad luck with animals, be careful!" and other things. When I did this during my visit to Kiyomizu Dera during my first week in Japan I got "bad luck!", however this time I got "neutral luck", saying that it was up to me to make my only luck. I think that's fitting.

    After visiting the shrine we left and headed further into Kyoto, going to a nearby station that had a mall right beside it. We went and had crepes because we wanted more after the crepes we had in Tokyo. They were really good.