Happy New Year

Hope you guys had a good refreshing time off from work and were able to spend quality time with family. Even though I usually work odd shifts, I somehow got almost the exact period of time off that most people in Japan do (12/26 ~ 1/2) so I was able to meet Yukina's whole family over the break for the first time.

Around March of last year, Yukina was able to meet most of my family except my dad. So after dating for over 2 years we finally got to meet most of each other's family. Up until now my American parents were always saying how strange it was that we have dated for so long yet I still hadn't met their family. What I kept telling them even though they didn't believe me, was that in Japan you don't usually meet the parents until you are about to get married. And it was exactly like I said, as now that I have met Yukina's family and getting approval from her father, I am happy to announce that:

We are getting married this month!

From what I have heard in America (honestly at this point I feel like I understand Japanese culture more than American culture), is that your wedding ceremony and officially submitting the documents are all done around the same time. Here in Japan it is quite common to first officially register your marriage with the city hall and then do an actual ceremony a few years later when you actually have the money. And that is exactly what we are doing as well. Submitting the official documents this month and then once we have some more money, have a small wedding.

We will also be officially moving into a new home together. Her parents were gracious enough to let us live at their grandparent's old house that they inherited, for very low cost. It is quite a large house so it will be a huge upgrade from the shoebox apartment I am currently living in and I will also be able to save money no longer having to pay 1/3 of my salary in rent. It will be a slightly longer commute but in return I will finally be able to own cats and/or dogs as pets in the house. My whole childhood I was never allowed to own a pet so this will finally be the first time and I am quite excited.

This month will be super busy with marriage and moving preparation as you can probably guess, but we are starting the new year strong already with big changes.

Hatsumōde

Of course no New Year is official until you do hatsumōde in Japan. For those who don't know, hatsumōde is probably the largest event in Japan every year. New Year's is an extremely important time in Japan and nearly every Japanese person does it within the first 5 days of the year. Hatsumōde is the first visit of the year to a shrine or temple where you pray for good luck and health for the year. I have done it every year since coming to Japan but this year Yukina and I decided to take it up a notch. Up until now we just went to a small local shrine with not alot of people, but this time we decided do something neither of us had done before and go to the most crowded place in Tokyo for hatsumōde: Sensō-ji. The moment it turned New Year's.

For how many people were visiting on New Year's Eve/Day, it was actually quite well organized by the police. Compared to Shibuya where even with police it is still chaos, there were actual proper lines set up where you could queue. Here is the video I took the moment we got there. It might look chaotic, but really, it was quite organized once we went a little further straight.

As we were queuing for hatsumōde, there was about 10 minutes left until New Year's. We had a perfect view of the Sky Tree where we thought they would do a countdown for New Year's but sadly the line moved slightly forward and our great view of the Sky Tree got pretty much blocked by the street lights. And on top of that, to my surprise, there wasn't even a countdown for New Year's. I looked at my phone, saw there was only like 20 seconds left, but nothing was being shown on the screen. Then suddenly it just displayed "Happy New Year's", in English. Why there was no countdown and why it was in English instead of the Japanese version of it "明けましておめでとうございます" is beyond me.

You can see the video I tried to take below but it's quite sad lol.

Ever since covid, most countdowns in Tokyo have been shutdown, like Shibuya for example. But this year I saw that the Tokyo Metropolitan Building was doing a giant New Year's countdown projection with a live concert and everything. Sadly by the time I noticed it, the tickets were already gone but now I know what to try and go to next New Year's Eve.

Once it turned New Year's, the line started to pick up pace and we were moving. It's estimated that over 3 million people visit Sensō-ji just for hatsumōde, and I believe it. To be honest, the line moved faster than I expected but we still ended up waiting in line for 2 hours.

As we were getting closer in line, we approached the Hōzōmon lantern. This was where I started to lose hope in humanity. The police officer in the area was clearly saying not to touch it, yet you can see hordes of people trying to; even smacking it and pulling the sides of the ropes. On non-busy days it seems like it's common for people to lightly touch the bottom of it as it's supposed to bring you good luck apparently but on hatsumōde, especially when an officer is saying not to touch it, it is incredibly disrespectful and rude to continue to do so anyway. Even more so to literally slap it.

Yukina and I both got pretty angry at this, and it wasn't just us. In one of the videos you can hear another Japanese person yelling 'やめろ!' telling people to stop touching it but they are ignoring him. It was mainly foreigners touching it, but there were also some Japanese people as well. When things like this happen, especially in what's considered a sacred area in Japan, I can see why the country would want less and less foreigners. As for Yukina and I, we both followed the rules and didn't touch it and Yukina was even telling people in English to stop it which got a couple people to stop. Anyway, it was kind of a surreal moment to see just how mindless a large amount of people are where they will just follow what everyone else is doing because they think they will benefit in some way from it. If a natural disaster ever happens I want to be far away from these people as possible.

Finally we made it

After two hours in line we finally made it to the stairs to go up to Sensō-ji. This was actually low key kind of scary because everyone was rushing up as fast as they can to get up the stairs. The police had it broken off into sections so after about 3-4 minutes the next group could go up but as soon as they removed the barricade it was like a Black Friday free for all. I don't know why everyone was in a rush because most of the trains aren't even running at this time (now 2 A.M) and the one that is running, is a 30 minute walk away to the station. So either way these people aren't getting home anytime soon.

There was also a very strong urine smell towards the end where I assume people who couldn't hold it for two hours just let it go and didn't care. So with this, combined with the lantern smacking and the stair rushing, I was once again thinking like "this is primitive human nature at its core". No care for other people, no self control, all while still wanting to ask their god for fortune and prosperity for the year. Go figure.

Here are is a photo and a video of what it was like going up the stairs. It's a still frame image from the video so it might not look the best, but looking back at it, it is actually insane the amount of people that are there. Like "I was just in that crowd". It's just people as far as the eye can see. Pretty surreal. I told you guys it was the biggest event in Japan. You believe me now?

After we finished hatsumōde we also pulled an おみくじ (omikuji) which I guess if you put it in simple American terms, is like a fortune cookie without the cookie. It's a fortune for the year on how it will go. Yukina and I both pulled 大吉 (daikiji) which is the best fortune that you can get. It said pretty much all our wishes and dreams will come true for this year. Alright, I'm all for that.

Yukina got number 11 and I got number 86.

After that, we headed to the food stalls to get some food since we hadn't eaten for a couple hours now. For me since I was already on night shift time thanks to my previous shift, I was still energized and didn't feel tired at all around 2:30AM, but I'm sure for most people it wasn't that way. It was kind of funny and surreal to see crowds of people all walking around aimlessly and eating 屋台 (yattai) stall food because there wasn't much of a way to get home. It was like everyone in Japan unanimously decided to pull an all-nighter for one day of the year. Even alot of restaurants that are normally closed after 9pm were in full swing. Inside, the seats were completely packed in nearly every restaurant we passed. Everyone was committed to staying up until the first train at 5am.

Ironically, Yukina and I were the ones who decided to go home early and not pull an all-nighter with the rest of society. As I mentioned earlier there was a train station 30 minutes away by foot (Ueno Station) and we decided to walk there. Despite him already coming here to Japan once and seeing the safety for himself, my father still always tells me to be safe at night in Japan, like it is some dangerous place. I know his American brain is hardwired to equate getting dark outside = dangerous but walking to the stations at 3AM at night, I never felt safer. Especially on New Year's.

Normally every train company stops service around midnight but for New Year's only, JR was cool enough to run the trains throughout the night so some of us can get home. Living in Tokyo for 2 years now I had never seen a train running at this time until today so I wanted to take a picture.

While hatsumōde at Sensō-ji was certainly interesting and exciting this was definitely a once in a lifetime kind of thing and neither Yukina nor I want to do it again. I mean you guys can probably understand why after reading this story right? Regardless, I was glad to be able to do this experience before I moved as it would have been way more difficult to do otherwise.

Meeting Yukina's family

Two days after doing hatsumōde, Yukina's family invited me over for New Year's dinner, Osechi. (お節料理). Consisting of multiple dishes, this is considered another way to bring good luck in Japan for New Year's and it is very common to eat at the start of the year. Despite living in Japan for nearly 4 years now, I had never gotten to experience osechi before as it is usually eaten as a family, not by yourself, and can be expensive. I was really grateful for them to invite me into their house and let me participate in this Japanese tradition. This was also when Yukina's father gave me permission to marry her and said it would be OK for us to live in the house that was inherited.

Also, on the way to her parents' house, Yukina pointed out this really pretty sunset. I thought it was really cool you can actually see the sunlight beaming down. I wonder what it was beaming down on?

That was my New Year's in Japan for 2026. What did you guys think? I'd love to hear your feedback and comments below as I recently added a reply function so I can reply to all of your comments directly now. There is a lot in store for Yukina and I this year and I can't wait to share the journey with you all on here. Stay tuned for more blogs and thanks for reading.