January 2nd

January 1st through 3rd are holidays here in Japan. The first is pretty quiet, when people generally stay home with their families and enjoy a lazy day after being out all night. On the 2nd, however, the emperor makes a public appearance at his palace in the center of Tokyo. It's one of two days each year that the emperor does this, so it's a big deal. The 2nd is also when all the sales start. In Japan, most stores mark the occasion by selling fukubukuro (福袋), which translates roughly as "surprise bags" or "lucky bags". Throughout the entire period of new year holidays, temples around Japan sell fortunes. Visitors to the temple shake a box containing numbered sticks, pull out a random stick with a number on it, and take the fortune with the corresponding number. If the fortune is good, people take it with them. If the fortune is bad, it's generally folded up and tied to a tree branch on the temple grounds so the bad fortune can't follow people home. Sensoji, in Asakusa (NE Tokyo) happens to have multilingual fortunes, so we braved the crowds to get ours. We also managed to see the emperor (for the 3rd year in a row) and do some shopping before heading out to Harajuku for dinner. It was a long day.


A dragon and his musical troupe added to the already substantial din of Tokyo Station.


Samantha standing in line at the Donguri Kyouwakoku (どんぐり共和国 - literally "Acorn Republic"), which sells things associated with Studio Ghibli. She had to wait for awhile, but our fukubukuro were worth it.


The "foreigners-go-home" folks were out in force for the emperor's appearance.


The Japanese people love their emperor (so do the nationalists, who started screaming "banzai, banzai" when he appeared). If you squint (and blow the picture up) you might see him in the center of that bulletproof balcony.


The line from the Kaminarimon (雷門 - Thunder Gate, behind us) to Sensoji Temple (the outer gate of which is visible near the horizon) was 400m long.


2007 is the year of the boar.


The main hall of Sensoji, which we could finally see after waiting an hour.


There were literally hundreds of Tokyo Metro Police on hand to control the crowd at the temple. This scene repeated itself everywhere in Japan over the last three days.


The inside of the main hall. This photo is blurry, but it gives you an idea of the bustle inside. Traditionally, visitors toss small coins into a receptacle near the front of the hall and then pray. The crowd here was so large that people were tossing 10-yen coins distances of 5 meters or so, just so they could avoid the crush at the front. This resulted in more than one visitor being pelted on the head.