Japanese going to the Sumiyoshi-Taisya Grand Shrine in Osaka. Japan New Year is a time Japanese people go to shrines or temples. Photo / 123RF
While Japan’s December festivities differ from those in Aotearoa, it’s a time of many unique traditions. Denise Stephens shares what to expect during a Christmas trip to Tokyo.
When I arrived in Tokyo on Christmas Day, Ginza’s department stores and boutiques buzzed with the usual after-work crowd, shopping beneath glitzy Christmas lights. Christmas is a commercial celebration in Japan, so most of the dazzling light displays were in shopping districts and malls. Decorated pine trees lined Ginza’s main street, and lights twinkled on lamp posts. A Christmas tree soared several levels high in the atrium of nearby Kitte mall, its ribbons of LED lights changing from white to frosty blue as onlookers positioned themselves for the best selfie.
Some light displays had a more general winter theme and continued to light up frosty nights through January. Fairy lights carpeted Tokyo Midtown Hibiya’s roof garden, with the city’s skyscrapers glowing in the background. Down at street level, shoppers walked up steps lit in rainbow colours. Near Gotanda station, Meguro River’s famous cherry trees were wrapped in pink lights and locals strolled along the riverbank or relaxed with a coffee outside the Lawson convenience store while enjoying the electric blossoms.
Early on Boxing Day, workers were busy removing Ginza’s Christmas trees and decorations. It was time to change seasons and decorate for New Year (shōgatsu in Japan), with tubs of bamboo and conifer foliage placed outside each shop before it opened for the day. New Year decorations took a more organic approach, swapping the glitzy Christmas lights for arrangements of bamboo, pine, citrus fruits, and folded paper.
I took the train from Tokyo to Kyoto, where the city’s shrines and temples were preparing for the New Year celebrations and the crowds who would attend.
At Chion-in in Kyoto’s eastern hills, this meant practising ringing one of Japan’s largest temple bells, which sounds 108 times at New Year to mark the number of sins in Buddhism. I joined a stream of people climbing the path to the Daishōrō, or Great Bell Tower, to watch.
Ringing a 70-tonne bell was not an easy job, with a team of 16 monks and a leader heaving on ropes to move a log to strike the bell. The monks took some time to untangle the ropes first, but once the bell-ringing started, it was magical hearing them chant as they pulled the ropes. I felt the reverberations of the bell and the chill of the ground through the soles of my feet, while the last of the autumn leaves fluttered down from the trees.
At Kyoto’s larger shrines, food stalls were set up in the days leading up to New Year, ready to feed the crowds who come for celebratory services. On New Year’s Eve, Yasaka Shrine’s stalls were busy selling takoyaki, chicken skewers, hot chips and chocolate bananas as people came for the Okera Mairi ceremony. A procession of priests emerged from the shrine, bearing a lantern to light fires around the grounds. These fires burned medicinal herbs to remove the negative energy of the old year and bring good fortune for the new. People wanting some good luck for themselves bought pieces of rope that they lit in the fire to carry the flame home, or at least as far as the shrine entrance.
As midnight drew closer, bells at Chion-in and other temples echoed through the night air. At Yasaka shrine, worshippers began to queue to offer their first prayers of the year after midnight.
For hatsumōde, the first visit to a shrine or temple in the new year I avoided popular venues such as Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto, or Senso-ji temple and Meiji shrine in Tokyo where the queues are long.
Instead, I went to Imamiya shrine in suburban Kyoto where families came to pray and buy their good luck charms for the coming year. Bamboo and conifers decorated the grounds, flowers filled the ritual purification water basin, and the atmosphere was festive and relaxed as people chatted with their neighbours while waiting to pray. In keeping with the spirit of the season, Tokyo offered traditional Japanese activities in several parks, including falconry at Hamarikyu Garden which is a former feudal lord’s hunting ground. I’d arrived early to walk around the garden first, but found locals filling the seats an hour before starting time. Stalls selling snacks and sake fuelled the audience until the handlers paraded their falcons. A demonstration of the falcons’ skills followed, with birds swooping from one leather-gloved hand to another metres away, and then being rewarded with a morsel of food.
Japan is a destination that delights in every season. However, the festivities around Christmas and New Year make it a special time to visit if you want to go beyond typical tourist sights to experience unique local traditions.
Christmas Day is not a public holiday in Japan, and all services will be operating according to their usual schedule.
New Year is a major holiday in Japan and many businesses close over this time. It’s also a peak domestic travel period for the Japanese, so transport and attractions are busy.
Trains and planes are fully booked as people travel away from large cities before New Year, and return home afterwards. New Year’s Day itself is quieter than the other days. Booking early is recommended if you need to travel at this time.
Restaurants may close for a few days, although hotel and chain restaurants remain open.
Shops close early on New Year’s Eve and remain closed on New Year’s Day, and possibly even a couple of days afterwards. Convenience stores usually stay open.
Tourist attractions often close for a few days around New Year, so it’s best to check the opening days for any museum, castle, or garden you want to visit. Places that stay open, such as Tokyo Disneyland, will be busy with locals enjoying their holiday.