Hatsumoude in Kyoto Vol.1

Hi, All! I’m so sorry I couldn’t write any article in this blog. This is the first article this year! hihi…

How’s your new year? Me, as you know, nothing changes…hihihi

In Japan, we go to temples(called “tera”) or shrines(called “jinjya”) to pray our first wish from January first to third. It’s called “hatsumoude”.

I went to Kyoto for hatsumoude either. This time I’m supposed to write about it.

The first shrine I went to was “Kitano-Tenmanguu”, which dedicates God of learning. God’s name is “Michizane Sugawara”, who lived in Heian era. I go there to pray every year.

This is “Hondou”, which means the main floor of the shrine. You can pray there with throwing some coin, which call “saisen”.

It was 7:30 a.m, so people visiting to prey was not so much.

After praying in Hondo, I proceeded and bought “ema”. “Ema” is a sort of wooded plate. Cow, which is this year’s oriental zodiac, is painted in front of the plate. You can write your mark of new year in the backside of the plate.

Me, I wrote like that as my mark, “I want to be able to use English more and more and more and more than now.” ofcourse it’s written in Japanese…

This is “ema”….

And then you bring the ema for the place called “ema-kakedokoro”. “ema-kakedokoro” is the place to hang “ema”. These emas keep hanging the entire year and are going to be burned in the last day of the year.

This is “ema-kakedokoro”

Let’s try it when you come to Japan! Maybe your hope come true…hihihi

To be continued…