New Year's Day!

In the early afternoon, we headed to Kandamyojin Shrine as is tradition to greet the new year. The first thing we did there was...to wash our hands and drink water.

No, we did not drink from the spoons, that would be unsanitary. We poured the water (with the spoons) into our palms and drank. Then we went to get our fortunes: omikuji. There was a performance going on at the side.

The miko gave me the black box she was holding and I shake it a bit and turn it over so a stick would come out. She would read off the number on the stick and give me the cooresponding piece of paper. I got 25.

I had no idea what it said and my friend's friend translated for me...and I still didn't understand. Doesn't matter to me. ^.^ If you get a good fortune, you keep it. If you get a bad fortune, you tie it to a tree or one of the structures.

Me? I tied mine to the structure. Just so I can say I did it before. (Touristy me. ^.^) Then we joined the throng of people heading to the temple itself to pray. How big a throng? Look below.

That was everyone behind me. O.O

When we got to the front, we throw in money, clap twice and pray. (For a moment, I wish I was in my Ritsuka outfit so I can re-enact ep. 11 at the shrine in Yokohama. lol) Then we looked around some more.

We took turns taking pics on this thing....

Then of course I got hungry. All along the road to the shrine were these food booths. I chose takoyaki as my stop. ^.^

Needless to say, it was delicious. I want more! Then we headed back to the station to take my friend to her NEWS concert at Tokyo Dome.

We chose a small cafe for dessert instead of actual food (even though the food was yummy, the dessert was certainly calling to us. ^.^ BTW, the tables, decor was all M&M's. Yummy!

Of course, I got hot chocolate with oreo cheese cake The others got brownie with vanilla ice cream and multilayered cake...I don't know what.

To balance all the sweets, we had onion rings and pieces of chicken. My French apartment mate never had onion rings before! O.O

After our meal, we discovered that the NEWS fangirls that were carrying around concert items was because they went to buy them early...and we wouldn't have time to get them. (Gomen ne, iceblueaya! *bows*) The concert starts in 1.5 hours while the wait time for the lines would be 2.5 hours. O.O I would stay to buy the items (since my apartment mate also wanted a cellphone chain) but only those with tickets are allowed to buy. *facefaults* We watched as my friend went into the building for the concert and I went with her friend back to the train station.

Last evening, I heard they opened the concert with their song, 'Happy Birthday', Yamapi sang his English solo O.O and there was 3 encores.

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