My first day back to work in Japan was actually a half day. We got the afternoon off to celebrate the New Year. My General Manager decided we should all take our free afternoon and go visit the most famous shrine in Nagoya to say our New Year prayers.
The approach to the Atsusa Shrine. It was a mob scene lined with special little stands selling Japanese festival foods, tiger trinkets, and other good luck charms.
You had to wait patiently (or fight the crowd, depending on your perspective) to get to the front of the shrine to toss your yen, bow twice, clap twice, pray silently for the New Year, and bow once more before you retreat. You choose the yen coin you believe is most appropriate for your wish. For example, if you throw 1 yen (1 cent) then your wish isn't very important, and you don't care about it too much. So I opted for the 10 yen (11 cents), but I did see a couple bills tossed onto the shrine, and the smallest bill is 1000 yen ($11)!!! I guess they really need their wish this year!
People everywhere you look. One guy I was with said the only place that had worse lines was Disney World in Orlando, Florida!! By the way, I found out that there are over 80,000 shrines in all of Japan!! Considering I've been to 10 or 12 already, I thought I was nearly done with them. I'm pretty sure that's not the case! (In fact, today I was invited to take a weekend trip to visit some shrines with a girl from work, but unfortunately I will be on a business trip during that time period.)
One friend I was with elected to buy a "fortune slip" for 200 yen.
If you like your fortune, you take the slip home with you, keep it for 2010, and hope it comes true. If the fortune is not good for you, it gets tied to some twine at the shrine, as my friend is doing.
You can see the shrine workers are replacing the twine because it is so full of discarded fortunes. That's a lot of crap fortunes for 200 yen a piece!!
Just down the road was (not surprisingly) another shrine. This one (Akiba Shrine) was considerably less busy.
By the way, every shrine that people tell me about (or I visit) is described as the "most important" or "most venerable" or "oldest" or "most popular", etc. It's funny how each shrine has some claim to fame!!
Lastly, I leave you with a new pic of the Meitetsu Girl. Remember from my Christmas blog when she was dressed in pink Christmas bulbs?! Now she is advertising the bi-annual Japan sales, which occur on January 2nd and July 1st. I am told there are some great deals to be found right now, but I just got plenty of new stuff when I was in the States, so I can't think of anything I should be shopping for!!
You are almost as tall as her!! Glad you had a great time back home. Your Dad told me he is ready for the trip in April!! Told me I would have to "duck" alot as I am 6'3" and doors are short there. love your Blog--Mike
ReplyDelete