Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu!

Happy New Year!

Took a little break from updates while we were in Michigan, but now that we're settled back into our routine in Japan we'd like to wish you a very happy 2011!

One activity we were happy to get back to in Yokkaichi was going for walks together. We almost always stop by a local temple during our strolls, and on our latest visit we could see bits of tradition surrounding New Year's.

Firstly, we saw kadomatsu, decorations placed in pairs outside temples, shrines and homes around the New Year. These decorations are meant to welcome ancestors, bring good luck for the year's harvest, and even temporarily house Japanese spirits or gods.


Next we took a look at the ema, or prayer cards. These cards are filled out with goals, hopes and prayers for the year (these ones were still from 2010).


Next we came to a little tree in a fire pit. The papers tied around the limbs are fortunes for 2011. These fortunes are drawn at the temple, read, and tied around the tree (whether good or bad).


The kadomatsu, ema, and tree will all be burned together within a matter of days. The kadomatsu: to release and appease the spirits; the ema: to let go of changed goals, bad things, memories and things not yet achieved; the tree and fortunes: to erase the bad luck and make the good luck come true. It's very symbolic of what many of us do every year. We embrace what was good, try to let go of what was bad, and hope for the best in the New Year.

Hope you can Let Go and Embrace Hope, Happiness and Love in 2011.

Lazy Friday

Our days off each week are Friday and Sunday. Lately on Fridays it has been raining, but this past Friday it was nice and sunny (it was also incredibly windy, but we weren't about to complain!). We decided to go for a walk around our area, and made several stops. A couple of these stops included two parks and Yokkaichi's two little shrines.

These pictures were taken at Unomori Park (about a fifteen to twenty minute walk from our apartment).

I wanted to take a picture of Chad up on this rock, and then this little girl started climbing up, too. I shrugged and asked, "Shashin wo tottemoii?" (Is it okay to take a picture?) She got right up next to Chad, offering the common symbol for all pictures of friends in Japan: peace. I let her look at the picture after we took it, and she said the equivalent of "cool" before running to her bike and riding away with a friend.

Above is the entrance from the park to the adjacent shrine. Unfortunately, since Yokkaichi is a relatively small city (about 300,000 people--so, bigger than Grand Rapids, but smaller than many cities here), there isn't much information about the area available for foreigners. I'll have to see if I can find out more information on the shrines at the Yokkaichi International Center, but for now please bear with our limited knowledge!

Pictured are several torii, or gates. These can be seen all over Japan, but usually they represent an entryway to a sacred area. I was lucky enough to visit one of Japan's most famous sites for torii in Miyajima (one of Japan's three most scenic places to visit) the last time I came to Japan.

Most shrines and temples have a place for you to clean your hands and mouth before entering. Above is an example of the fountain at Unomori Shrine used for this purpose.

Here is an example of wooden prayer cards that can be seen in every Japanese shrine and temple. When visiting, you can buy a card and then write a prayer, whether it be for a family member with ailing health, or to get good grades on your next exam. Then you hang the card on the posts and hope that the gods, or kami, grant your prayer(s). Shrines all have certain imagery on the cards, usually hand-painted. Many of the above pictured cards have daruma painted on them.

I was introduced to daruma a few years ago when I was trying to find a good luck gift for Chad. He was going to be taking his black belt test for karate, and I was searching the web when I found daruma dolls for sale. They work like this: the doll is purchased with both eyes painted white. You paint one pupil with black ink while making some sort of wish (I wished Chad luck on his test). While waiting for your wish to come into fruition, you place the doll in a visible place so you can be easily reminded of your goal. Then, when the wish is granted, you carefully, gratefully, paint the other pupil. Chad got his black belt and painted the other eye, because, well, you never know. :-)

In the picture above, you can see many of the daruma on the cards have only one eye painted. Just like other cards, the temple usually burns these cards after one year. This isn't meant to mean the prayer has been abandoned, but that the person who made the card is going to try another path to fulfill his or her goal.

This is one of the few pictures we took of Suwa Shrine. This shrine is much smaller than Unomori, but it's still pretty neat. You can see stone lanterns (another common presence in all shrines) as well as a statue of a mix between a lion and a dog.