Today is the first day of the New Year. I’ve been waiting for this moment for a very long time, but it has come later than I thought it would. It’s supposed to snow today, but it didn’t, which was a good thing. We had plans to go out today and finish up the Tokyo Tour, at least all of the good parts that I had planned. So my plan for today was to go to Akihabara, Ueno, and Asakusa. I know that these places are very very crowded because of the temples there and everyone going there to pray for a wonderful new year. I wanted to go to these places because I wanted to do just that. I wanted to pray for a wonderful new year. I never really considered myself a very religious person or even a superstitious person, but since I’ve been living in Japan, I’ve really gotten into it.
We took the bus to Totsuka station and then traveled to Akihabara. We really didn’t do much there because most of the stores there were actually closed and there weren’t many of the attractions there anyways. I wanted to show my family the interesting part of that area of Tokyo because it has a reputation of gathering all the interesting people that are very interested in anime, computers, and other electronics. It’s very interesting to see them all gather there and all the little quirks that are just there. I think that they liked it, but it got boring really quick. It’s a tradition for my family to make a trip to the temple on New Years’ day, which I didn’t do last year since I was in Japan and on my own. But this year, we started right after the Akihabara visit. We just looked around that area and then walked straight to the Ueno area, which wasn’t very far.
At first, I didn’t know exactly where the temple was located, but we just saw mobs of people and I instinctively thought to follow them. We ended up at a temple in the Yushimanakasaka area. I’m not sure what the name of the temple was, but it was fairly busy. We had to wait in a long line just to get in. The line stretched for about a few city blocks and even down a couple of streets and hills. But after the hour long wait, we made it in. The first thing that we needed to do was to pray and donate some money. Then we looked around and I wanted to buy some arrows for the New Year. I’m not sure what their significance was, but I liked the way that they looked and thought it would be cool to have. We ended up getting four of them since my sisters wanted to give them away as gifts too. My mom was looking for something to decorate the house with as a symbol of good luck, but we were unable to find one that suited her liking.
Then we went to the Ueno Park to take a stroll around and then proceeded to the Ameya street area. It was only the second time that I have been to that area of Ueno too. I have been to the street one other time, when I met up with YSki in the summer of last year. It was pretty interesting, but most of the stores were closed because of the holiday. It was good. I saw a stand where they were selling DVDs and I saw a few that I wanted, but the problem was that they were copies and I know that they weren’t real copies and they were selling them for about $10 USD a piece. I thought that it was a rip-off and if you were going to get an illegal copy, you shouldn’t have to pay that much for it. But I think most people in Japan think that’s a deal because DVDs here are four times more than that.
We jumped on the Ginza line and then went to Asakusa. I know that this area would be really really crowded and I was correct on that guess. It was packed and the streets were closed off to cars since there were so many people there. We went through the gate first and it was pretty easy after that. It just took a long time to get to the temple part. We walked under the red lantern and then through the little mall-ish section right before the temple. That it was more interesting that the last temple that we went to because there were things to take our attention away from the long wait. It was bad for me because it gave my family a lot of opportunities to buy souvenirs. Since I was paying for everything, they were buying up a storm. Well, not that much actually, but for some reason I didn’t mind paying for it. I was really happy that I was able to do it and I still have enough saved for the rest of the trip too. I think that they finished a majority of the shopping by now. It was the first time that I have been to Asakusa temple and actually gone in.
The time we spent in the temple was just a few minutes and it was just to donate and pray again. I should mention that when I pray in Japan, I pray in Japanese. Just like when I was in Taiwan and we went to temple, I prayed in Chinese. I’m not sure if that makes a difference or not, but I think it does. You’d figure that they would be able to answer your prayers no matter what language you use and no matter where you are, but I think that it would be more appropriate to use the language of the country that you’re in.
After that, the whole area around there was all setup with a bunch of booths. I let my sisters go wander around for a little bit, while I picked up an “omikuji” fortune. I didn’t get a bad one and I didn’t get a good one. I just got a regular fortune and kept it since I didn’t expect anything bad or good to happen this year. But the fortune seemed to tune into the things that I have been waiting for and I think that keeping it will bring me the much needed luck for some things in my life.
Since there was a Family Mart next to the entrance of the Ginza subway line, we went inside and bought the tickets for Tokyo Disney Sea for January 3rd. We did accomplish a lot this week and I think that we are generally all very tired and exhausted from my up and going schedule. We already had a few days with not so many activities and even one whole day of rest too. We then started to come home, but we needed to get dinner someplace.
When we transferred lines at Ueno station, we decided that it would be a good area to get dinner. We wanted some thing that everyone could eat and the only place was something with American food. We went to Hard Rock Café. This would be the first time that I’ve actually had food at the place. I have been to the Hard Rock Café in La Jolla, but I haven’t had anything to eat there since I was only volunteering for their run/walk. We didn’t get so many things tonight since we learned our lesson from Wolfgang Puck the other day. We only got three dishes. It was Chimichanga, Pasta, and Chicken sandwich. We all shared it and it was perfect for all of us. For some reason though, it was much more expensive than it was at Wolfgang Puck and we had more food there and we couldn’t finish it either. I think that it was weird that Hard Rock charged tax and had a large service charge. That’s not usual to any place in Japan that I’ve been too. I think that jacked up the price a little bit.
Then we stopped off at a grocery store before we came home. I’m typing this at around 3am right now, so I think I will get some shut-eye and probably update my blogger soon. I’d like to get some pictures posted as soon as I can, so please sit tight if you want to see it.
