New Years in Tokyo-World

So I took Louise and Sheila back to mine and Hannah’s in Morishita, making a quick stop at the 100en store (which is like £1 store but has food and things that are useful and work), to get curry and rice and some veg. When we got back I cooked us all a nummy meal of cheap curry and we watched the Kouhaku Uta Gassen aka the Red and White Song Battle!

Every New Years eve in Japan they do this show where the years top singers split into two teams (red and white) and have like a sing off. Not just the J-pop bands but also a wid

e selection of Enka performers as well as a couple of kids songs from animes. It’s basically a variety show, a bit of a laugh. Kinda like red nose day only it’s just singers and doesn’t raise money for charity…I think. I really, really enjoyed it ^-^ But I don’t think the others did so much…could have been thanks for Media and Culture module last term meant I knew half of the people on stage…ahh well. Sadly the video I took of the performance has a lot of background noise and shaking because I was distracted, but I got some photos!

Once that had gotten a way through we decided to head out early to the Shrine. Yes, shrine. Hannah and I decided we wanted to do New Years the Japanese way and had scouted out a nearby shrine that wasn’t more then 20min walk away. It was a Buddhist temple right next to a Shinto shrine. We were arrived the streets were packed with food vendors. OMG it smelled soooooo good! After exploring the mouth watering food stalls we went and found the temple. A few people were quing up so we joined the que…but the que didn’t move…we waited, and waited. I looked behind us and the road down to the temple was PACKED with people! Then as soon as it hit 12:00 (people in the crowd started to count down) the crowd rushed forward with some guard trafficking the people so the temple wasn’t over whelmed. We were near the front too so managed to pray for the New Year soon on New Years day.

Then we went exploring some more, and got omamori (charms, I got one for study) and some uranai (fortunes) for the new year. I got pretty average fortune (again, I never get great, just average, story of my life hahaha). OH! While we were getting those I saw some Buddhist priest blessing someone’s car! I knew it happens (the trains in Kansai get blessed) but it was the first time I’d seen it happen!

Then it was weird Japanese food hunting time >8D Thankfully the curry had filled us and we had little money so didn’t buy too much but what we did get was good. I think it was okonomiyaki, taiyaki and some kind of steamed dough in random sauce XD I can’t remember. Then Louise and Sheila went and Hannah and I walked past. I can safely say we didn’t really do anything the following day, just relaxed in snuggly bed (or vegetating if you want to put it another way XD)