With the excitement of New Year's Eve over we moved on to New Year's day. No picnics at the beach here - just a trip to the shrine to pray for a year of good luck - along with the entire population of Kyushu island!Of course to do this properly you really need to get dressed in kimono so my mother-in-law spent about an hour and a half getting Hannah, Amanda and the little ones dressed up and ready to go. Of course once we got there they discovered that most people were just dressed normally - but nothing like a cultural experience to start the year off!
For anyone who has been following this blog for a while you may remember an entry on November the 30th (you can check the archives if you are not sure) about the Usa shrine which is about 10 minutes from here. The photos on that day showed no people, a slight change from today! It really felt like half the population of Japan had come to pray with us - which makes for quite a different atmosphere! Hannah and Amanda were shown the correct way to pray at this shrine (apparently there are different ways to pray at different shrines) - throw the money, bow 2 times, clap 4 times and then bow once more while making your wish. It didn't help me to win the lottery, but here's hoping it will lead to a good year in 2007 for us all!
No comments:
Post a Comment