We interrupt the much-delayed Comiket coverage to wish you a belated Happy New Year! 新年明けましておめでとうございまãï¼ While saner people were enjoying the company of their family and friends on New Year’s Eve in the comfort of their homes, I was wandering around Sensouji (浅草寺) to have a look at the infamous midnight queue of people hoping to be among the first to perform hatsumoude (first shrine visit of the year) at the shrine.

Rather amusing if you read kanji

Sensouji (浅草寺) is a Buddhist temple that basically defines the entire existence of Asakusa (浅草). Interestingly, I did not notice that the two names share the same kanji pronounced differently until recently. The outermost entrance to the temple is the Kaminarimon (雷門), a mystical gateway to a walkway of tourist traps leading right up to the temple itself.

There are only four kinds of people in this world

In Japan, Buddhism and Shintoism underwent centuries of cross-pollination and are pretty similar to each other, sort of like Linux distros. The Buddhist temples are called tera (寺) while the Shinto shrines are called jinja (神社), and ostensibly they worship different gods, but generally people go to them to do the same things — namely omikuji, throwing coins into donation boxes, and buying omamori. (As far as I can tell anyway; it’s not like I took a course in Japanese Religions or anything.)

So what’s so special about hatsumoude as compared to a normal shrine visit? Well, nothing actually. You still do the same things. The only difference is that the once deserted temple/shrine is now filled with a few thousand other people. It’s awesome.

Okay, it is also a rather festive occasion, with food and handicraft stalls setting up temporary camp around the perimeter of the temple. It’s sort of like natsumatsuri, except in winter. Since people from all over Kantou (and no doubt beyond) come to Sensouji — one of the more prominent places of worship in Japan — for hatsumoude, business is obscenely good for these opportunistic hawkers.

The start of the queue

Around midnight, the hatsumoude queue for Sensouji stretched all the way from the temple to Kaminarimon and continued on for god knows how far down the T-junction road in front of the gate. The roads around the area were closed off by the Metropolitan Police and there were tons of police and fire department officers on the scene to manage the queue.

Somewhere along the queue

A police officer

To be continued…

Police buses and cars

In front of Kaminarimon

Although I did queue overnight for Winter Comiket once back when I was young and foolish, I had since grown saner and wisely decided against queuing for hours in the cold just to throw a few coins into a box.

The money box

My plan was to walk around and take some pictures before returning in the morning when (I thought) the place would be empty. Surprisingly, the queue actually managed to retain the same length right into the afternoon of the 1st, and I only managed to do my hatsumoude at around 7pm. I prayed for world peace, of course.

For the entire day, the area around my hostel in Asakusa was flooded with people who just completed their prayers, and for some inexplicable reason, a large number of them were speaking Chinese. (I actually walked into a Matsuya gyuudon chain store in the morning and discovered that 12 out of the 16 customers were Chinese speakers.)

It is what you think it is

Yup

On a completely serious note, the entire experience was actually just like Comiket. The police officers managed the queue using the exact same techniques that Comiket organizers do. There were regular breaks along the queue which allowed pedestrians to get to the other side, while police officers lined perimeters to prevent cutting. Hell, the temple was even selling a “limited edition” ofuda (お札) that is only available for the New Year period…

There are even collectible figurines!

So yeah, hatsumoude is like Comiket for regular people.

On another note, I got sueshoukichi (末小吉) for my omikuji which, according to Hatena Keyword, is the worst possible level of kichi (good luck) one can get without entering into kyou (bad luck) region… Apparently sueshoukichi is so rare that the chance of getting it is 3% and many shrines do not even include it as one of the possible results. Woot, go me! >_<

Get a number and match it to the corresponding drawer to receive your fortune

Incidentally, the number of the stick that fell out of the omikuji container thingy is the same as the day of my birth date. Coincidence? I think so.

Some guy doing a roadside puppet show. It wasn’t very good

I actually went to Meiji Shrine in Shibuya today. Will blog about that at a (much) later date.

Also, I have just about enough money left to survive my remaining stay if I spend on nothing but (cheap) food and transportation. I walked 4km from Akihabara Metro Station to Sakura Hostel in Asakusa today…

I ate whale meat today. It tasted okay. Nothing special, really. It’s sort of like salmon sashimi when it’s raw, and sort of like beef when it’s cooked. Hayden Panettiere is crying now.

I’m actually staying at Sakura Hostel in Asakusa, Tokyo right now. I was in Hakone before this. I will be blogging more about things from Osaka and Hakone when I have the time.

It’s whale meat

The shop specializes in whale meat and set meals (定食) go for anywhere between 1,000 to 2,000 yen. They contain very little whale meat relative to the rice serving. There are also sashimi sets with meat from various parts of the whale body and they cost more, going from about 2,000 to 4,000 yen.

Scientific whaling is delicious

The set I ordered (raw red whale meat on rice) cost 1,050 yen. There were actually bits of whale skin in the miso soup too. They tasted rather nice. That said, whale meat doesn’t taste nearly as exotic as I had imagined it to be. It’s certainly not worth the premium over regular beef/salmon.

This particular shop is located near the tourist trap Kaminarimon at Asakusa. There are some other izakaya around the area that serve whale meat, but this is the only specialized eatery I found.

I also dropped by Ghibli Museum in Mitaka and Kabuki-chou in Shinjuku today and took some pictures. Will talk about them in posts to follow. Someday.

P.S. I’ve been accepted by Stanford University via Early Action! It almost made up for the disappointment of not being able to get my hands on Maaya Sakamoto’s upcoming concert ticket.

A fire engine just drove by. I wonder where it’s heading to. But anyway, read on for photos from Kaminarimon, Nakano Broadway, Shinjuku and nighttime Akihabara.

Asakusa

We went to Sensouji near Asakusa Station in the morning. I tried the omikuji. It took forever for a stick to fall out, but my fortune is apparently good.

Tourist traps

Spot the odd one out

Tsuruya-san’s family business

Ruined symmetry

Small boat town

Kanji

Paying for protection

Shake, pull and match

Roses are red, violets are blue. All my base are belong to you

They need to add a foliage-penetration mode on cameras

I want one

Nakano

Next stop, Nakano Broadway. I already covered this place in a previous entry so I shall save the explanations. More pictures!

Still in the mood for X’mas

Fraulein Revoltech Rei for 1485 yen

The only other picture I took inside Nakano Broadway

In the back alleys

Japanglish

Reminds me of FLCL

Shinjuku

I spent the afternoon alone wandering around Shinjuku. I walked around 4km. I bought a light novel called Bungaku Shoujo to Shinitagari no Piero (“文学少女”と死にたがりの道化). I have no idea what it is about, but I bought it anyway because I liked the little prose in the page before the prologue, and because it’s in some kind of “Top 10” list so it has to be somewhat decent.

Pink flowers added just in case you miss the message

Outside the Shinjuku Station’s New South Exit

New South Exit

Shinjuku Station is about the size of a small city with exits that are hundreds of metres apart. It’s a hell load of walking.

I don’t know where this place is but whatever

Shinjuku Station serves a few dozen lines

Takashimaya used to be a cloth shop

One line

Two lines

Three lines

Shinjuku Station is the busiest train station in the world with over 3.3 million passengers a day.

Compensation

Random building

Kinokuniya South Shinjuku Branch

My membership card doesn’t work here…

Walkway connecting Kinokuniya to Takashimaya

Kinokuniya is actually a grocery store in Japan!

Walking towards the Metropolitan Government Office (800m away)

Hey, is that…?

Yeah it is.

Bureaucratic zone

One of Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s buildings

Taxpayer yen at work

Fuji News Network news truck

Push the button for audio signals

Akihabara

Finally, I met with Don777 in Akihabara. He’s a pretty nice guy, especially since he likes Maaya too. He brought me to @home cafe and Cafe with Cat (Toranoana’s new cafe). Cafe with Cat seems to be a pretty standard maid cafe deal except with cat-inspired uniforms instead of maid costumes, whereas @home is definitely on the manic side of things. The waitress who brought us our drinks actually did this heart-sign action to inject a “moé” flavour.

But I shall not go into that because I am falling asleep anytime now… A few more pictures and we are done.

Fortune Arterial is the latest game by August, the makers of Yoake Mae yori Ruri-iro na. Basically it’s the exact same game except the hair colours get shuffled around a bit and the Feena-lookalike is a loli. It’s also the most anticipated upcoming game according to Comptiq magazine, so expect it to sell a gazillion copies and be turned into a cabbage an anime.

Eva coffee

The second Kara no Kyoukai movie will be out on Saturday

Well, that’s it for today. I need sleep.

By the way, in case you didn’t know yet, all the photos (and more) can be found in my photo gallery.

After leaving our luggage at the hostel, the group of us proceeded to take a long walk (longer than it should be due to various detours) to Akihabara. Pictures after the break.

Photos are in chronological order. (More or less.)

Airport to Hostel

Train to Tokyo from Narita Airport

Miscellaneous buildings near our hostel

More miscellaneous buildings

Fallen leaves

Look, it’s sakura!

The source of the fallen leaves

The twilight zone — or when I forgot to set white balance

Train tracks

Camera over shoulder

Camera is heavy

Kitties!

Coffee

Nice boats

Traffic accident tallies for yesterday

Akihabara

Robots in disguise!

Lost hope

Akihabara main street closed to traffic due to holiday

But not many cosplayers as it’s not Sunday

Sofmap; new Yamigawa building to be photoshopped in soon

The Akiba wanderers

Animate — now in orange!

The pathway to heaven

Child abuse

aipoddo

Flesh sin and general decadence abound

The giants of Akiba

I want to catch this in cinemas

Konata is big

It’s 4pm and the sun is setting

Nyo~

Those signs are each about three-floors tall

toki wo kakeru konata

Back in Asakusa

JR Asakusa-bashi Station

Anpanman

Doraemon

Ultraman

Kamen Mask Rider

SD Gundam

Nighttime

Bandai’s headquarters used to be in Asakusa and they still maintain a presence here in the form of two office buildings. We happened to pass by them during our after-dinner stoll. May drop by again later during office hours to look at their showcases.

As for the title of this post: we lost our way for 15 minutes or so during our little night stroll. It was an interesting experience…

Heading to Tsukiji fish market in the morning tomorrow.