Meiji Jingu

"Hatsu Moude" is where folks flock to a shrine to wish for good luck and a prosperous new year around the 1st 2nd and 3rd of January. Famous shrines like Meiji Jingu are jam packed full of people on these dates as you can see from these photos.

Drums of Japanese rice wine I think.

This board is found on the way to the main gate of the shrine. I call it the Board of Death. It basically tells you who is going to have a bad year. You know this by looking to see whether it has the year that you was born. Luckily my year of birth was not on the board but even if it was, I could go to a special section of the shrine to have all that bad evil karma warded off by somebody waving some stick at me.
If I cant afford that (its not free) then I could go and get some goodies to protect me from evil karma (yep - not free either) from shops located on the way out of the shrine.

The main entrance to Meiji Jingu. People, people and more people. Events like these usually go without incident. I can imagine (from experience) that if this was the UK people would be hurling bricks, bottles and kentucky fried chicken.

The shrine is in sight. When you get to the front of this queue, you will see everybody throwing coins into a huge pit, clapping once and then holding their hands together in prayer - all of them praying for the same thing - SAFS.

As mentioned earlier, regardless of whether its going to be a bad year for you, you can pick up some lucky charms. Some of these charms come in the form of "protect me from traffic accidents" or "make our family a happy one", "make it so that I pass my exams" etc.

I suppose this would be the closest thing to holy water? Use it to cleanse your soul of evil spirits and bring on the good karma by taking a sip and washing both hands. Dont go over board by taking all your clothes off and taking a dip in the water - you will either freeze to death or get arrested or both. Although I suppose there is no point in arresting a dead person.

The water is freeeezing!

If you have a particular wish you would like the heavens to attend to, you can write it on a placard like this and hang it on one of these fences. You can go ahead and read other peoples placards and will mostly see "I blah blah.........so please help me pass my exams", "my boss is a right........so help me find another job", "I stole a.......so please forgive me."

I forgot what this is called but you can go and get one of these pieces of paper which has a prediction of your future on it. So for those who pick up one which says "you will be eaten by a giant snake and slowly digested over a thousand years" then you should quickly roll it up and tie it to this fence so that it doesn't come true.

Conveniently placed on the way out of the shrine is the food stalls. Who wouldn't want some nice n hot food to warm one up after they have been freezing their dolphin off in the cold for a few hours?

How about some yummy Yaki Soba?

Or how about some Satsuma potatoes - deep fried and sprinkled in sugar.

Meiji Jingu is in Harajuku which is one stop away from Shibuya. Went there after to pick up some new year bargains.

Akihabara=geek stuff. Shibuya=fashion stuff.

And after a morning/afternoon full of crowds, nothing beats coming back home to some peace and quiet.