New Years Eve in Japan

On New Years eve, while the rest of the world celebrates the new year with fireworks and parties, the Japanese are praying. New Years is a cultural holiday in Japan, with an integration of religion, tradition, and culture. One of the traditions that many people partake in is eating soba as the last meal for the passing year. We did that. =) On New Years eve, another tradition is to go to the temple and say thank you for a wonderful previous year, and pray for a wonderful upcoming year. Since it's a one of a kind event, we decided to take a trip to Kamakura, about 45 minutes away, to go to a temple there to ring in the new year. We left the house at 10, and came back at 3:30am on 01 January 2008. Happy New Year!! =)

(It is tradition for the monks to ring the temple bell 108 times to mark the new year. At this particular temple, people can line up to ring the temple bell. This is a picture of when it was my turn to ring in the new year =) I got a good sound out of it!)

(Dad in front of the temple bell which is underneath the little wooden structure in the background. Many more people after us were eager to ring the bell as well.)

(This isn't the best picture, but we really weren't able to take a lot of pictures. This was taken at another temple, where we waited to climb the temple steps to throw in our donation and pray for the upcoming year. There were a lot of people here waiting to say their prayers for the new year.)