Hatsumoude

Sensouji in Asakusa, Tokyo

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す！ 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…