Oshougatsu - January 1st

Despite getting to bed around 3am last night, I got up early in the morning to bring in the new year with the family, Japanese style. I got downstairs and was quickly reminded that on new years, everyone dresses up in the morning before greeting the other. I dashed back upstairs and threw on some of the clothes my brother had sent me before returning to the living room and giving everyone a proper greeting. The ancestors get to eat first, so we all made our offerings to the shrine in the washitsu. I was goaded into making my own prayer, so I thanked the ancestors for the lovely family with whom I get to stay, and gave them a よろしくお願いします (yoroshiku onegaishimasu) for the coming year.

We all sat down to breakfast of osechi ryouri, the traditional first meal of the year. Each kind of food has some kind of symbolic meaning pertaining to the new year, although they weren't all particularly tasty. I had a bit of a disagreement with the large tiger shrimp, who had neither been shelled nor had its head or sand vein removed. I love shrimp but I can't stand to eat the sand vein; since it was a special occasion, and I already have a reputation as the foreigner that eats practically anything, I choked down the shrimp, but drew the line at sucking the brains out of its head. Shrimp brains taste like a combination of crab butter and squid liver, neither of which do I ever find myself craving. I quickly ate the rest of the meal in an attempt to wash down the aftertaste of shrimp intestines, so I don't recall if there was anything particularly noteworthy. Haruto didn't seem to be too impressed either, and he slipped out of his high chair to go outside and play with bubbles. Apparently, not even many Japanese people care for osechi ryouri.

We watched a bit of tv and played around for a while, but we still hadn't gone out for 初詣 (hatsumoude, the year's first visit to a shrine or temple). There are big shrines and temples to which thousands of people flock, but we have a decent local temple nearby, with which Araiyakushi station shares its name. It's within walking distance, so we threw our shoes and coats on, and headed over to the shrine.

There was already a considerable crowd gathered in front of the gates, with a long line snaking its way through the surrounding street. In the center of the crowd was a single middle aged man in a jogging suit, slumped over a beer can. I had some sake with my breakfast, but 10am is a little early to be drunk in public! We waited in line patiently, playing with a few cheap toys from one of the nearby shops selling nickel bags of candy.

The temple grounds were also pretty crowded, and even had a few yatai stands up, selling different kinds of food. We made our way to the main shrine and made our 5 yen contributions, sealing it with a prayer. We made our way past the bonfires and small joya no kane to get our mikuji, new years fortunes. You shake a drum filled with sticks, and when one falls out, you get a fortune that corresponds to the number on the stick. Mine was 吉 (kichi), which is a standard good luck fortune. Yumi-chan got 大吉 (daikichi), which is great luck, and the detailed fortune even specified that she will have a safe birth, and that the child will be female (wow!) Yukiko pulled a 凶 (kyou), bad fortune, and had to go through some extra steps in order to negate the bad luck and replace it with good fortune. This involved getting a new fortune and tying it to the wires pictured above, then burning the bad fortune in one of the bonfires on the compound. She's had enough bad luck for the time being, so I hope that did the trick. After marvelling at the apparent accuracy of Yumi's fortune (we hadn't yet found out whether the new baby is a boy or girl), we returned home to enjoy our lazy holiday.