it's not life that matters but the journey...

Yes, I changed my layout again. the other one was having issues with the title words smishing up. And now this one may have to go, because I can't get the spacing just right because the commenter's user pics were overlapping with my sidebar and tags. There's just no winning.

Anyway, as promised, here are the pictures I took at the Sengen Shrine on Monday. It's a big post, mostly because I wanted to give lots of explanation for the Japanese New Year's traditions for you all (and especially for nekosensei who requested some photos of Japanese people celebrating the New Year.)

It's all behind a cut, and in clickable thumbnails. Enjoy!! I'm off to get many things done on my last day of vacation before I return to work tomorrow...



On Monday, I went with my husband and my friend Naomi to the Fujisan Hongu Sengentaisha, a very big and popular shrine which is located in Fujinomiya, about 30-40 minutes away from where we live. In Japan, Hatsumode, or visiting a shrine or temple, is one of the most important traditions at the New Year, and even though this was already January 3rd there were still many people there. If we had gone on the 1st of January, we wouldn’t have been able to breathe or walk around. Japan is not a very religious country, and while most people might call themselves Shinto (which is Japan’s main religion), or Buddhist, they don’t really visit temples or shrines except for weddings, funerals and the celebration of the New Year. This tendency may be compared to Americans who may call themselves Christian, but they don’t go to church except to attend weddings and funerals, and for the obligatory Easter and Christmas services.

Here are some views of the shrine as we were approaching:












There was a mini "matsuri" happening outside the temple, which is usually a chance for people to sell various goods or food like yakisoba, takoyaki (fried octopus), chocolate bananas and other "festival foods":














When Japanese people visit a temple or shrine, they usually will drop a coin in the wooden box which is located just outside the entrance, clap their hands, bow their heads, and say a prayer. This act of offering money to the gods is called saisenbako .
Here you can see how many people are lined up to put money into the box. And you can see some of the people as they are saying their prayers:














People will also wash their hands and mouths in the purification trough – they will take the cup and fill it with water – in this case it’s water from Mount Fuji – and rinse their hands, and then take some of the water cupped into their hands and rinse their mouth, then spit the water out beside the fountain:







When visiting a shrine or temple, people have other options, such as praying inside the temple, buying omikuji or other luck or fortune charms. Omikuji are fortune telling strips that have some prediction for the coming year, either very good luck or very bad luck. They are randomly picked, and then the person ties the omikuji to a tree branch, hoping that the good luck will come true, or the bad luck will be averted:














Visitors can also write their wishes on a wooden plate called an Ema – people write what they desire and leave it at the temple or shrine, hoping that their wishes will come true:










After we walked around and observed these things, and I took pictures, we saw the grounds, which would be more beautiful perhaps in the spring or fall. In winter, you can see lots of fallen leaves, and things aren’t as colorful or green. But still, there are some beautiful ponds with very clear water from Mt. Fuji, and big koi (carp), and there were ducks and geese, and paths for walking. You can see the very big goose who was posing for pictures, and the very dark koi in the water (usually koi are more colorful than this). There were even some chickens (but don’t ask me why there are chickens on the shrine grounds)! The white chickens, I was told, are known for their very expensive eggs:
























We also got photos of these women who worked at the shrine – I’m not sure of their function, but their costumes were beautiful:







And some final pictures.
It’s the year of the Rabbit:







Here’s me with Naomi:




The komainu (dogs which are usually found outside a shrine)





And some of the bridge and exiting views: