January 1, 2025
We got a slow start this morning after last night’s late festivities. I got up earlier than most and cooked a tofu and veggie Japanese curry ahead of time for dinner. I also made a really nice mushroom and cheese omelette for Aubrey and Teva for breakfast. We had a lot of food left over from last night, so people worked their way through the leftovers. I did some reconnaissance to see what food stores were open and found a small grocery store nearby. I bought a few potatoes, some onions and some oil to make latkes to go with our curry for dinner. We finally had the facilities to make them, a store to buy the ingredients and time to actually eat them. This morning was really a catch up morning – laundry, rest and of course most people wanted to shower. We didn’t leave the house until almost 1:30.
We understood that pretty much everything is closed on New Year’s Day, so we decided to do what most people do on New Year’s: visit Meiji-jingu shrine. We knew it would be busy, but we were not expecting the sea of humanity that awaited us. As we were being herded through the shrine complex like cattle, we looked up the stats. We were shocked to find out that between Dec 31 at midnight and Jan 3, well over 3 million people will visit this shrine. Wow. There was a complex system to move all of the people through efficiently, involving signs and barriers and police officers. Absolutely mind-boggling.
The shrine was originally built in 1920 to immortalize the memory of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken. The building of the shrine was a public effort with much of the labour and materials having been donated. Grounds were opened to the public in 1926. Unfortunately the original building was destroyed in the Tokyo air raids of World War II. It was then rebuilt with public fundraising efforts in 1958.
When we finally got close to the shrine we saw an enormous drum being stuck with a single strike by various people who were being supervised by one member of the staff. It seems you could pay for the privilege of being able to start the new year executing this ritual.
People basically lined up to bring offerings, buy souvenirs and charms and toss change into the shrine area itself and make a small prayer. We also saw many people leaving the shrine with ornamental arrows. I was curious as to why. Here is what I found on the Tsukublog.
“Besides its importance as a weapon, the bow and arrow has been extremely important for RITUAL PURPOSES in Japan. If you have visited a shrine at the beginning of the new year, you have probably noticed all the people buying HAMAYA ( LUCKY ARROWS- with knobby tips), which are taken home in the belief that they will bring one year of good luck…both arrows AND bows have played an important role in driving away impurities, misfortune, and evil spirits. It was in fact THE SOUNDS THEY MAKE – the twang of the bow, and the whizz of the arrow shooting through the air, that they were believed to be effective.
The Azusa Yumi (catalpa wood bow) was an essential tool in Japanese Shamanism for exorcising evil, and shooting ritual arrows was an important part of the imperial court’s New Year’s Eve purification rituals during the Heian Period- The TSUINA (which was introduced from China).”
The shrine was surrounded by a forested area with a canopy of beautiful trees, I really enjoyed walking along the paths, and even though there were throngs of people, somehow it felt less frantic because of the trees.
From the shrine, we headed for a stroll in Yoyogi park – a large park right next to the shrine. It was busy with families out for a walk, joggers, and dogs being walked in strollers. Even in these Tokyo winter conditions, many of the rose bushes in the rose garden were still blooming and fragrant in close proximity.
From the park, we went to Shibuya to try and find a grater to grate the potatoes for the latkes. What I had forgotten was that there are not really many cheese graters in Japan. I went to several stores and couldn’t find one. I settled on a peeler that had a tiny grater on the other side. It was very difficult to use, but we persevered – more on that later.
While in Shibuya we decided to pivot. Instead of going home for my homemade curry we went to a really fun conveyor belt sushi restaurant. Each person sits at a bar with an iPad. You order from the iPad and then within minutes a plate arrives at your place on one of two tracks. There was a great selection of tasty options, it came quickly, and it was very reasonably priced. Overall a great dinner choice; we will eat the curry tomorrow instead.
After dinner we went to an 8 floor Karaoke establishment. We got a small room, with unlimited hot and cold non-alcoholic drinks. We stayed for two hours and sang our hearts out whether or not we had a microphone in our hand. We all had a lot of fun.
We got back home around 10:30, had a logistics meeting and then made latkes together, while Aubrey repaired Noam’s sweatpants and three of our packs. The conditions were less than optimal: we had only a teeny tiny grater, no mixing bowls (I used the bowl from inside the rice cooker), and no baking powder or flour as a binder but we managed.
They turned out pretty well. You could say it was a Chanukah miracle that for the last night we had fresh hot latkes after we lit the candles.
We have a really early morning tomorrow and we are all going to bed too late, so I will sign off here.
In honour of Chanukah and the New Year, I will remember that it only takes a small candle to light up the dark and we should always strive to be the light.
