Then you go to pray at the nearest local shrine and cleanse yourself to sin all over again in the new decade.

While most foreigners in Japan (and single, lonely college girls...sigh) would take this is yet another excuse to engage in drunken revelry in the nearest Big City, your humble ranter has, like, connections man. Having done a homestay in Odawara city in Kanagawa Prefecture in 2006, I take some responsibility in being a good son to my former host family and ring in the New Year with them.

So keep your hands warm as we go onto the Jumble:

Apologies to not wielding a bigger flash to the event. As you can see here, people line up by the tens of dozens here. In bigger shrines such as those in Asakusa and Harajuku, there will inevitably be thousands lined up to pray and seduce lady luck. It should also be noted that it is cold out here. Thankfully, some kind gentlemen go up and down serving Wakameshiru, or seaweed soup, and Amazake, or sweet heated sake. Between you and me, go for the seaweed given that the sake tastes like spoiled horchata.

Outside the temple walls, daruma are sold. The dear reader may recognize these little fellows from Spirited Away as the disembodied heads that shuffled around. In Japanese culture, these are yet another wish-beckoning charm. You buy one, make a wish and fill in one eye. Then, when your wish comes true, you fill in the other. This is especially most common with students examinations.

Because it wouldn't be a Japan Jumble without a pictue of random garbage, here's some apparent leftovers from the festivities. It should be noted that these goods aren't just disposed and hauled out to a landfill...

They are ritually incinerated in accordance with traditional practice. Discarded prayers and ema are given similarly reverent treatment.

Just something about the way the sun shines on New Years' Day that makes it seem it brighter and shinier than usual...

Moving away from Kanagawa. Let's take a look at Tokyo itself on the next day. I was actually a little disappointed this year by just how bustling the city remained. Last year, it was a virtual ghost town walking along the Yamanote from Ueno to Tokyo station. Not a single soul seemed to remain in the city and it was kind of cool. 

Unfortunately Tokyo, stubborn bastard that it is, refused to give me similar treatment. Well, it wasn't all a loss. After all, here we see the Takashimaya Times Square in Shinjuku, a huge shopping center that frequently gets loads and loads of foot traffic daily, closed down and left a shell of it's normal self.

Hell, even the Starbucks closed down on January 1st. A Starbucks. In Tokyo. In Shinjuku. Good god, if that's not some minor triumph of the human spirit over consumerism I don't know what is.

Well that wraps it up for 2010's first installment of Japan Jumble. Next time, we're going to drop in Comiket recollections as I recover from the home stretch of this cold which has been killing for the past two weeks.