Annual Shrine visit

This is New Year's Day in Japan, which is the largest holiday in the country. People travel from all over, to all over, Japan to visit their relatives. I was up in Utsunomiya today to visit my fiance's family. Her mom took this photo with my X10 (it was cold so she was shaking and the result is a little out of focus, sorry!).

This is the tiny shrine her family has been going to for generations. Each new year, Japanese people visit their local shrine to wish for a good new year. My local shrine in Tokyo is huge in comparison, and has huge lines of people waiting for up to an hour to reach the front of the shrine and pray/make a wish. This year was much better as there are much fewer people in Utsunomiya.

There was a bad point in the day though, another big earthquake hit Japan
this afternoon, scale of 7.0, but fortunately, no serious damage or tsunami.

All in all, we had a wonderful start of a hopefully wonderful new year!

Akemashita omedetou gozaimasu! (Happy New Year in Japanese!)