New Years

Ian and his wife came to my condo for New Years Eve and we ate, drank, and talked until just about midnight. Then the four of us went to the local Buddhist temple and drank a cup of sake and listened to them ringing the temple bell. Then we went to the local Shinto shrine and, after standing in line in the snow for close to an hour, went up on the shrine steps. There we made a small gift (100 yen in my case), bowed, rang the bell to let the god know that we were there, bowed twice, clapped our hands twice, paused with lowered head (prayed?), then bowed again and walked off to the right. When we got off the stairs, we were given a wooden cup full of Japanese sake. We then bought our fortunes for the year. Mine was 'kichi' which is second from the best. Then as we left the temple grounds we were given a plate of mochi with bean sauce. Mochi is steamed rice that is pounded with a hammer until it becomes a thick, gooey mass. It is delicious. Finally, on the way home we stopped by the small Shinto shrine to the river god and after a gift ( a couple of yen), ringing the bell, bowing, and clapping our hands, we went home to call a taxi so Ian and his wife could get home. It was a good night.

I said I was going to take pictures but I realized that they would be exactly the same as last year, so if you are interested, look back in this blog to last New Years and look at those pictures.

While Ian was visiting, he gave me a computer file with the pictures that he took during our pilgrimage. I will start posting them in the next blog. The battery in his camera died and we could not find a replacement so he does not have as many I as do. What he did take, however, gives a different perspective to many of the things that I pictured.