For the New Year's eve, we travelled to Tokyo to celebrate it with my Japanese uncle and his mother. But before heading to their house in Tokyo, we stopped by Hachioji to shop for food at Costco. There were so many shoppers getting ready for the NYE.
When we arrived at my uncle's house, we cleaned it up a bit then we headed to the onsen (public bath). There were actually a lot of customers that night. After that, we picked up my cousin and aunt's bestfriend at the bus station and we went to Don Quijote to go shopping. Imagine, it's around 10pm and we're still shopping on NYE.
We all went back to the house and got ready for the NYE dinner (Media Noche in Pinoy culture). We had a very simple NYE dinner. The staple food for NYE dinner in Japan is the soba. After dinner, we headed to the Jindaiji Temple. It's a tradition in Japan to visit shrines/temples on NYE. There were a lot of people lining up to throw coins and pray or make a wish. Surprisingly, I saw a lot of groups of young people at the temple. While some were at the New Year countdown at Shibuya crossing and in some clubs/bars, there were still a long of youngsters who still celebrate the NYE traditionally.
The next day, we had brunch. We shared the "osechi", a set of traditional Japanese New Year food in a special box called, "jubako". Each food symbolizes something, such as health, wealth, and good fortune. After brunch, we hit Harajuku area for shopping. New Year's Day shopping is probably the craziest shopping day of the year in Japan. I'll be making a different post about it, as this post focuses on Japanese New Year.
Anyway, the next day, my aunt's friend gave me an "otoshidama" or New Year money, along with an "omikuji", a piece of paper that talks about my fortune. Unfortunately, I got bad fortune, or "kyo". I must get at least a "kichi" or blessing. To reverse the bad fortune, we went to Suwataisha Temple and tied the piece of paper containing bad fortune at the temple. Then I picked a new number. When I got the piece of paper, it read "kichi", or blessing. Finally! Well, you can check Wikipedia on their meanings.
So that's the traditional Japanese New Year. Far from how I usually celebrate it in the Philippines, but this experience has been really worth it.
xoxo,
city girl
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