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Photopost: Hatsumode at Nishi Arai Daishi (２０１０初詣、西新井大師）
Hi. I'm supposed to be packing for my trip to Obama City tomorrow morning, and/or sleeping, so I'm gonna try to keep this short and just put up some photos. Basically, today I went to Nishi Arai Daishi with my friend Kohei -- it was his idea since he'd never been there. It's up in Adachi-ku, a 25-minute bus ride from Akabane, or a convoluted train ride, so we took the bus.
Hatsumode is this tradition where the entire country descends upon temples for the first prayer of the year, within the first 2-3 days of the year, so as a result, some temples are ridiculously crowded. This one was only a 10-15 minute wait to get in -- I remember trying to go to Tsuruoka Hachimangu a few years back with Carl, which had about 4 bazillion people there. The other cool thing is that they set up tons of little stands with food and stuff, so you go and pray, and then after that you maybe buy omamori (protective charms) and omikuji (fortunes), and then you go eat various stuff being sold by the vendors in the tents!
We ate "Nishi-arai-yaki", which was basically okonomiyaki with a big slice of meat on the top of it and some corn inside it in addition to the normal cabbage, it was pretty good. Kohei also drank sweet sake, and had karaage, and I bought some satsuma-imo sticks. Yum. Then we walked for a mile or so until we found Nishi-Arai train station, which is in a nice renovated suburbany area with tons of high-rise apartments and a new Ario mall and everything.
Went to Ueno, wandered Ameyokocho, eventually ended up at a kushikatsu place and ate fried stuff on sticks, drank some beer, talked for a while, then went home. Whee.
This is the temple we went to:
View below through the omikuji that people tied up. I got a daikichi, the best luck you can get, so I kept mine :)
Me in front of the temple and the crowds.
A big stand full of daruma. People were also bringing old daruma there.
A stand selling birthday fortunes for every day of the year. We didn't get any of these.
Kohei took this picture of me making a candy bag from the konpeito stand... yes, Carl, they're for you :P
If you don't know what inago is, you are better off that way. Eww. They were trying to convince me to eat it, and I was like "No fucking way."
This is Nishiaraiyaki! It was yummy!
Kohei putting some stuff in his sweet sake. I don't really know what.
One of the streets of tent vendors.
The flavors and stuff at a crepe stand (and Hershey's chocolate! wow!)
I actually don't know what was going on here. I think people could custom-order omamori wooden thingies and have them written and pick them up here?
Me at the other side of the temple, by the pond full of fishies.
Hatsumode is this tradition where the entire country descends upon temples for the first prayer of the year, within the first 2-3 days of the year, so as a result, some temples are ridiculously crowded. This one was only a 10-15 minute wait to get in -- I remember trying to go to Tsuruoka Hachimangu a few years back with Carl, which had about 4 bazillion people there. The other cool thing is that they set up tons of little stands with food and stuff, so you go and pray, and then after that you maybe buy omamori (protective charms) and omikuji (fortunes), and then you go eat various stuff being sold by the vendors in the tents!
We ate "Nishi-arai-yaki", which was basically okonomiyaki with a big slice of meat on the top of it and some corn inside it in addition to the normal cabbage, it was pretty good. Kohei also drank sweet sake, and had karaage, and I bought some satsuma-imo sticks. Yum. Then we walked for a mile or so until we found Nishi-Arai train station, which is in a nice renovated suburbany area with tons of high-rise apartments and a new Ario mall and everything.
Went to Ueno, wandered Ameyokocho, eventually ended up at a kushikatsu place and ate fried stuff on sticks, drank some beer, talked for a while, then went home. Whee.
This is the temple we went to:
View below through the omikuji that people tied up. I got a daikichi, the best luck you can get, so I kept mine :)
Me in front of the temple and the crowds.
A big stand full of daruma. People were also bringing old daruma there.
A stand selling birthday fortunes for every day of the year. We didn't get any of these.
Kohei took this picture of me making a candy bag from the konpeito stand... yes, Carl, they're for you :P
If you don't know what inago is, you are better off that way. Eww. They were trying to convince me to eat it, and I was like "No fucking way."
This is Nishiaraiyaki! It was yummy!
Kohei putting some stuff in his sweet sake. I don't really know what.
One of the streets of tent vendors.
The flavors and stuff at a crepe stand (and Hershey's chocolate! wow!)
I actually don't know what was going on here. I think people could custom-order omamori wooden thingies and have them written and pick them up here?
Me at the other side of the temple, by the pond full of fishies.
no subject
Umm, the general practice is to tie your omikuji somewhere on the temple premises regardless of whether it is good or bad. (This is true.)
You have nullified any good fortune you might have gotten from your omikuji by taking it home. (This I'm making up.)
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/おみくじ
no subject
no subject
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You don't "recharge" a daruma.
One usually gets a daruma when there is a specific goal; e.g., passing an exam, finding a job, etc. At that point, one draws in one eye. When the goal is achieved, the other eye is filled in. Then, when going on hatsumode, people will bring their used darumas to be burned along with their old omamori.
If you don't know what inago is, you are better off that way. Eww. They were trying to convince me to eat it, and I was like "No fucking way."
Inago are nothing. In fact, they're pretty good if you can stir up the courage to put one in your mouth. Now, what are really scary are "hachinoko" (蜂の子).
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/はちのこ
I actually sent a bottle of "hachinoko" to Phil because he said his kids were interested in how natives ate insects in South America or some such.