Japan: Akemashite omedeto gozaimasu!

Or, a big Happy New Year from us!

For our new year, we started with a free soba (traditional new years food, a type of noodle) and sake (unfortunately not for us, as the drinking age is 20!) evening at our hostel which was fun and very
yummy. Talked with some friendly graduate TEFL teachers who had come to Tokyo to meet up from schools across Japan and the lovely people who work at the hostel.

After this, we headed to Senso-Ji Temple, the oldest temple in Tokyo and only 15 minutes walk away. The atmosphere in the temple grounds was spectacular with food sellers everywhere hawking their goods, lucky charm merchants and groups of people all amongst the old temple buildings which had been lit up. After getting a sweet dinner of a cute fish shaped pastry filled with sweetened red bean paste we joined the masses who were queuing for entry into the temple shrine. It was surprisingly hard to know it was actually new year as there wasn't a big countdown! But at midnight, the crowd started moving and the flow of thousands of people started to move into the shrine!

It was all incredibly efficient with the police moving everyone into the shrine in groups and constant Japanese instructions being shouted out, all very calm....until you entered the shrine! Suddenly it was a
flurry of people, pushing and shoving and everyone was trying to get to the front to chuck money into the donation area and say a prayer! After finally escaping the throngs of people we were surprised to see the TEFL teachers we met in the hostel earlier also struggling out the crowds, stroke of new year luck!

On the first day of the new year we got up pretty late (!) and so seeing hatsuihinode, the first sunrise was a miss, but I have a feeling it was for most of Tokyo too. We made our way to Harajuku where we went to the Meiji Shrine, a huge Shinto shrine right in the middle of Tokyo's most bustling shopping districts. After queuing up and praying I wrote my new year wishes on a slip on paper along with a donation to be put into the shrine. Dinner was at the masses of festival hot food sellers all around- I only wanted to try foods on a stick! Kare age (fried chicken), takoyaki (octopus balls) and..... (this is the problem with not being able to read!) deep fried potato with bacon and sugared butter! Such an unhealthy start to the new year!

From Meiji Shrine we made our way into Harajuku to a massive, famous department store called Laforet. The clothes are for teens and they're all one size- tiny! On the top floor, shop assistants were screaming how good their sales were to try and beckon you inside into girly, affordable brands and on the bottom floor are Japan's famous, expensive alternative fashion brands who made the Harajuku girl
internationally famous. I have an utter love for Japanese fashion and have many tomes of imported fashion books and Phaidon photo books of street fashion photography, so going to this teen fashion Mecca was incredible! Getting to see and touch the clothes in real life of brands I've studied each new collection of since I was 14 was very, very cool.

We spent the evening playing video games in one of Tokyo's numerous multi floor arcades before having a second dinner of convenience store food and hot drinks from vending machines. Vending machines are EVERYWHERE and they sell hot and cold drinks of every description - hot pancake syrup for 120Yen anyone? The machines are also very polite and say thank you to you, are VERY quick and let you pay by your train pass, notes or old fashioned coins. Convenience stores are also everywhere and are amazing! They even have 100Yen convenience stores where it's like a tiny supermarket where everything's 100Yen. The staff are so helpful and polite and there's so much interesting (and dubious!) snack food that we won't have tried 1% of what's on offer despite going into them everyday. Also, everything's cute.... I absolutely love it! Peanut butter sandwiches have little smiley faces on them and all the packaged food has cute (or kawaii) mascots akin to
Hello Kitty. Life should be cute!!! ^_^

On the 2nd we went to the Ginza area to the Imperial Palace as it is one of the two days of the year (the other is the Emperor's birthday) where the inner palace is opened to the public. We went through vigorous security checks before being handed Japanese flags to wave as Emperor came outside to wave and say a speech. What's interesting is that the Ginza area is full of glass and steel tall buildings and right next to it is an ancient palace. This rings true for all of Tokyo and incredibly modern building will neighbour very old structures, the roofs are all at different heights and it doesn't feel like any of the woes of UK planning permission exist in these streets!

On the 3rd we made our way back to Harajuku, but this time, we were there early, map in hand and ready for the quest! The quest for Lucky Packs! As we walked down Harajuku's busiest street, it was crowded and very, very noisy. Girls with megaphones would be screaming sale prices and hinting to the contents of their lucky packs in their shops and it felt like every teenage girl in Tokyo was there! By the end of the day I was absolutely shattered. We'd shopped Harajuku and Shibuya and seen
some crazy shops on the way. 400Yen vintage clothes shops were something I thought was very cool where all the clothing is one price, ranging from packs of buttons to bomber jackets. A Second hand
Vivienne Westwood, a shop where only girls are allowed in with photo booths, dressing up tables and a cake shop so you can preen yourself, take photos with your friends in your new clothes before having a rest stop from shopping and 4 floor 100Yen shops which sell crockery, plants and everything
else you can imagine (with cute faces on! ^_^).

One floor of the 100Y shop-Not a thing like Pound Land!!

Shop girls shouting with megaphones to beckon you into their sales... almost every shop on the street had someone doing this (deafening!). This girl has a pretty cute heart shaped megaphone!

Takeshita-dori - Harajuku's coolest street with the craziest clothes and even more crazy crowds!

At the end of the day I had 2 lucky packs clutched in my hand- a 300Y bag from the accessories shop Paris Kids which is filled with necklaces, a bracelet and exciting hair stuff and a huuuuuge 3000Y bag
from Swimmer, a home and accessories shop which sell very, very snazzy designs. Inside my bag is too much to list (!), it's absolutely stuffed and the shop said each bag would have around 15,000Y worth of goods inside. My favourites are a strawberry printed flask and a cream printed lunch bag but I also have bags, shoes, earrings, key rings, stationary etc. etc.! My desk at uni will be kawaii-d out!

After the mammoth shopping day, we decided to eat in a restaurant for the first time. Convenience stores, street food and (amazingly tasty and impressive!) Japanese fast food chains are all brilliant, but
after 8 hours of shopping it is nice to relax properly! I had a whole grilled mackerel with miso, pickles, radish, seaweed and rice whilst Ems and Antonia had different breaded chicken dishes with the same set of accompaniments. Pretty good for around 2000Y between us! It's now the 4th which means it's back to work for most of Japan. Museums are open again, lucky pack sales are over and most of the New Year traditions have been done. It's been a definite cultural start to 2011 and my prayers for the rest of the new year are that it continues in the same way!

Happy New Year everyone, hope your days to 2011 started with a bang ^_^!