Once again, amid tales of forthcoming apocalypse, we've rung in the next year! Last year was incredibly cold and a bit snowy, so we watched fireworks from our balcony and didn't do much. This year was mild, and our chiropractor lent us a bike for Matt to ride (I already had one given to me by a good friend who returned to America over the summer), so we had no excuse to stay in like the homebodies we are. We rode around the mountain to Inaba Jinja, a prominent Gifu shrine. I was amazed by the beauty of the place as well as the liveliness of the street lined with vendors. I'm used to visiting Kyoto, Tokyo, Osaka, and other such cities, where there are tons of historical sites that draw huge numbers of visitors each year, but even counting the Nobunaga Festival I've never seen this sort of gathering in Gifu before. To the left is the view from the first shrine torii down through the street of vendors. We arrived about 11:25 and took a walk around the shrine grounds. There were police with ropes standing at the main torii, waiting until midnight to open the way up so everyone could ring in an auspicious New Year. This first shrine visit in the New Year is called hatsumoude, and this year we took part, too.
Because we had so much time before midnight, we leisurely walked the street to check out the vendors' yatai (stands). Mostly there was a lot of food like takoyaki (fried balls of octopus), okonomiyaki (fried pancake sandwich things), and karaage (fried chicken). I have made GF okonomiyaki and karaage at home, and they're both quite tasty. I got a chocolate-covered pineapple slice with a strawberry chocolate flower. Matt got a large taiyaki, which is one of his favorite traditional sweets.
We re-joined the quickly growing mass of people at about five to midnight and waited for the police to open the way to the shrine. A beautiful thing about Inaba Jinja is its location on the mountain. It's not far, or strenuous, but you do need to climb a bit to see the shrine. As we slowly climbed, pushed along by revelers, parts of the shrine were revealed to us. The picture to the right is of the large gate you pass through to get to the main shrine. To the left of where I stood to take this photo is the place to purify yourself before visiting the shrine. Matt and I (along with a majority of others) did not purify ourselves. Maybe that means our prayers for 2012 will be ignored, as we were unclean.
Through the gate we could see the shrine, pictured below. It's a bit out of focus, but it appropriately captures the crowds of people present to pray for good fortune in 2012. There's still some residual snow on the temple roof, and for the first time, we saw lit lanterns. Praying was pandemonium, as people crushed through you to get to the altar, absolutely oblivious to any sort of line that may have been formed for just that reason. Eventually, we were able to stand close enough to toss our coins in, clap twice, think a little wish, and move out.
On the way down we walked through a pathway of vermilion torii, pausing at a small pond with a waterfall that could only be heard. Higher up the mountain were lesser shrines that people could climb to and place offerings to specific deities. Because of the crowds, and the growing cold in our fingers and toes, we decided to follow the flow down the mountain to the shrine's entrance, and bike home. Below is a picture of the masses from our viewpoint relatively close to the main shrine. When we arrived back at the bike parking, we could barely pull our bikes from the pile that had accumulated over the past few hours. At home, we toasted the New Year with cassis ginger ale, which for the record is quite tasty. Perhaps the most fun part of our celebrations happened the next afternoon, when we were able to ring in two more New Years over Skype with friends and relatives. Here's to a great 2012! Let's turn it around, people.
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