Traditional Japanese New Year, Old School Style

Yuko's grandpa has been wanting to take me places recently. Last week before we picked kiwis, we went to Hasedera, a sweet looking temple with lots of traditional buildings in the middle of the mountains, with a butt-load of steps.





Yesterday, I didn't celebrate the new year in front of the tube, watching a countdown, or at some party, but I celebrated it like the Japknees would have done in medieval times. Me and gramps went WAY up in the middle of the mountains (the road was WAY small. And that's comparing to normal Japanese roads, NOT wide-load American roads) to some lonely shrine that was built in the 700s, where we wrote our names and ages on flat wood sticks (which were to be burned I guess). We then lit candles and stuck them on something at the front, then sat down, listening to some guy do some rockin' chanting, and another guy dinging the bell outside. Where I was sitting, the smoke from the burning incense was in my face almost the entire time. That's good for the black lung. The bell is to be dung 108 times, and the people there take turns dinging at the end to complete 108. Grandpa went before me and when he hit it, I thought it was way too fricking loud. Resolved to not hit it as hard as he had, I took my turn and hit it. DEAFENING... WTF? Everybody there then ate sweet bean soup with mochi in it. Then we went home. Surprisingly, in the middle of the mountains at this shrine, the guy that lives there spoke English, some girl spoke a little too, and his son (who was visiting for the holidays) spoke really good English and was living in the German part of Switzerland, but said that rather than using German, he almost always spoke with everybody in English. He said that almost everybody speaks English there... Interesting... Is this true?

There were probably less than 20 people there, so it was a very different experience than one would have from going to Miwa shrine, where thousands of people went. We luckily avoided that traffic that was going to the shrine (people go after midnight and do the "first trip of the year to a shrine") that was at a standstill, by taking backroads home.