Konbachiwa, minna san!
And yeah, for those of you who wonder... that's a mesh of words up there! Konbachiwa is a merging of "Konbanwa" as in good evening, "konnichiwa" as in good day. Minna-san is a polite way of saying, well...everyone. So it means something like "Good day/evening everyone!"
So! Yes! Happy 2009 everyone! A new year with fresh beginnings! Yay!
Today we headed off to Meiji Jinju, one of the largest shinto-shrines in Tokyo. And yeah, it was huge! Even teh garden around was huge, and we spent quite some time just wandering around there, looking for the exit. We also stumbled across a Meiji Treasure Museum where we saw different artifacts used by the emperor Meiji and his wife. It was pretty interesting, especially for me, since I've read so much about what happened in Japan in the Meiji Era.
Another thing worth mentioning is that... there were a LOT of people there. And not just a little
lot, a LOT A LOT! Everywhere we went, there were people heading off to the shrine to pray for good fortune. Some wore kimonos as well, and it was really fun to see all the different patterns they had on them.
Afterwards we started to just walk randomly around the area, Harajuku and Omotesando, and every now and then we stumbled upon a shop that was open! haha! We even got to do some shopping of clothes and souvenires. Yay for that! Not to mention that we've entered a sale-week here in Tokyo, so mostly everything is off 50%.
And that sort of ends our day! So much is closed that we didn't plan much anyways.
Have a still happy new year! (Pictures will come later!)
~Thea (and Trude)
And yeah, for those of you who wonder... that's a mesh of words up there! Konbachiwa is a merging of "Konbanwa" as in good evening, "konnichiwa" as in good day. Minna-san is a polite way of saying, well...everyone. So it means something like "Good day/evening everyone!"So! Yes! Happy 2009 everyone! A new year with fresh beginnings! Yay!
Today we headed off to Meiji Jinju, one of the largest shinto-shrines in Tokyo. And yeah, it was huge! Even teh garden around was huge, and we spent quite some time just wandering around there, looking for the exit. We also stumbled across a Meiji Treasure Museum where we saw different artifacts used by the emperor Meiji and his wife. It was pretty interesting, especially for me, since I've read so much about what happened in Japan in the Meiji Era.
Another thing worth mentioning is that... there were a LOT of people there. And not just a little
lot, a LOT A LOT! Everywhere we went, there were people heading off to the shrine to pray for good fortune. Some wore kimonos as well, and it was really fun to see all the different patterns they had on them.Afterwards we started to just walk randomly around the area, Harajuku and Omotesando, and every now and then we stumbled upon a shop that was open! haha! We even got to do some shopping of clothes and souvenires. Yay for that! Not to mention that we've entered a sale-week here in Tokyo, so mostly everything is off 50%.
And that sort of ends our day! So much is closed that we didn't plan much anyways.
Have a still happy new year! (Pictures will come later!)
~Thea (and Trude)
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