New Years Eve
This year we spent New Years in Kyoto. We started the night by visiting Nonoji-jo, the castle, before moving to Fushimi Inari Shrine. It was really cool, as the temple has several kilometres of red toreii (or gates) that lead from the temple up the mountain to various altars, shrines, and cemeteries. We walked through the never-ending path of gates to a small altar where families were climbing to give offerings to their ancestors. Plus, for those who dared to the edge, the walk had some amazing views of Kyoto. Following our hike up the mountain, we explored the festival with the thousands of Japanese, and then celebrated a traditional Japanese New Years. It was really neat, because for most of the evening, we were the only foreigners there, showing this was authentic, and not a tourist version of the celebration. Luckily, we did our prayer before midnight, as the line up to do so had grown into a several hour wait to do so in the new year, and it gets cold when the sun goes down!
posted by Zachary and Jane @ 6:25 PM
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