Hatsumode at Washinomiya Shrine

First, Happy New Year everyone!
Did you all take good resolutions for 2015? Mine is to continue working on the one I had set for myself in 2014...

Today for the first time I did Hatsumode in Japan.
To know more about it, go read the wiki article linked or google it, but I'll give a simple explanation here.
Hatsumode is the first visit of the Shrine of the year. It is usually done in the first 3 days of the year, and is an important japanese tradition.
Most shrines are really crowded at this time of the year, even smaller ones.
I decided to go to Washinomiya shrine (the shrine in Lucky Star) once again, because it's kinda my favourite shrine, and I love Washinomiya, plus they had a special even with Lucky Star goods and cosplay.

I guess most cosplay was on the night of the 31, as I saw some on the first, but not many. Even without the cosplay, I still enjoyed this event a lot. The was a lot of things to see, a lot of smiling people, and a lot of food to eat.
For this kind of event, the food stalls that you can see during matsuri were out on the shrine grounds.

The great thing about Washinomiya is how the pop culture of Otaku, and anime mix so greatly with the traditional one. So while this specific shrine had otaku stuff going on, the shrine is still a very traditional place, and traditional rituals were performed.

(BTW, my normal lens broke, so I was using a zoom lens for all those shots, that's why some of them seem like they should have been taken wider, but I couldn't sorry.)

After lining up to the shrine, and doing our prayers for the new year, we got to draw our Omikuji, a paper that tells you how your luck will be in the next year. By mistake, the box I picked from was for love Omikuji, but I decided to go with it, and apparently I'll have great luck in love. That's just perfect!

After that we bought an Ema, a piece of wood used to write our wishes on, and attached it with the others.
Once again, this is Washinomiya, so the display of Ema didn't disappoint, with even the author of Lucky Star, Kagami Yoshimizu, leaving his own.

Ema by Kagami-sensei

Here are ours:

I can't draw without a draft D:

After that we ate some more and went back home. It was a relatively short time, but it was really fun, I really enjoyed Hatsumode in Japan. And I suggest that if you're in japan around new year, you should totally try it too.
And if you're a Lucky Star fan... do I need to say more?

Here's my loot from today:

The white arrow is supposed to ward off evil!

And here's the full album from today, with a little more cosplay and Ema pictures: (Google+/Picasa)

That's all for today, don't hesitate to ask questions about this event in the comments, I'm sure I forgot important stuff you might want to know.

Hajisai 2014

Last Sunday was Hajisai.
Hajisai is a matsuri in Washimiya.
This festival was probably the most fun festival I've ever been to.
It was so great to see a usually really calm city like Washinomiya being so full of people and so lively.
The really special thing about Hajisai is that it's not only a traditional Japanese matsuri, it's also an otaku Matsuri. At the same time that you have everything from a tradition Japanese matsuri; The yukata, the Happi, the Mikoshi (protable shrine), the hanabi and the songs and dance, you also have a big event with anime songs playing on a stage, special lucky star stuff being sold, people cosplaying. Tsukasa's seiyuu was also there and she sang 3 songs.

First a little lesson for those who don't know about either Japanese matsuri/culture or about wishinomiya.

Matsuri: A matsuri is a festival, I've talked about that am lot in the past.
Washinomiya: Washinomiya is the shrine where the Hiiragi sisters work in Lucky Star, so the city embraced this and is doing a lot of Lucky Star themed events.
Mikoshi: small portable shrine that people carry around the town during matsuri.

The really awesome point of Hajisai is the Lucky Star Mikoshi. You can see it being prepared on this picture I took soon after getting there:

Washinomiya station is between 1:30 to 2 hours of train from where I live, depending on which line you take.
I wanted to get there early to get the limited edition Happi they made for the event.
They even made it in the color I voted for on their website so I really wanted it, and there was only 300 made.
First thing I did was get it in the morning.

Most clothes don't fit me in Japan, but a Happi would fit anyone so there wasn't any problems there!
After that I waited for some guys from G+ that I was supposed to meet while watching the people on one of the stage singing anime songs.
It was raining in the morning so not many people where there at that point.
Also because it was raining and I had 2 umbrella (I had a K-On umbrella in my bag+ a cheap umbrella) I gave one to a random Japanese guy who didn't have one.

The songs were nice, after a while we went back toward the shrine, we saw the Day parade of the Shrine's mikoshi and a lot of people cosplaying as well as some Itasha.

During the day, only the Shrine's mikoshi are parading, the Lucky star one is only parading in the evening. this gave me the opportunity to take some nice pictures of cosplayer close to the mikoshi

 And some close to the shrine:

After that, the more interesting stuff was starting on the big stage so we went back there, along the way I crossed the OTAKOI-Soran, which was a radio parading in the street playing anime songs with people dancing around it, you can see one song here:


The Big stage had some musinc and dance going on again, this time with more famous people, the people from Dear Stage did some songs, there was a couple of people in cosplay doing dances, and an otaku dance contest.

After that the Voice Actress of Tsukasa came on Stage. There was a short interview game where people that were chosen from the crowd (i think) were asked to write on a paper what they tough Kaorin would answer to the question she was asked, and then they compared the ansers and gave points accordingly. The winner received a Happi signed by her (and maybe other people there seemed to be a lot of signatures on it)

After that she gave a mini-live of 3 songs. It was really nice but too short.
I'm really glad that she sang Nenigede Reset, of of Tsukasa's character songs, it was really cute.
She also did Motteke! Sailor Fuku! of course, and the crowd was really into it.

Once her live was over, it was time to go back to the Shrine for the start of the Night parade. Just before I left the stage area, the Japanese guy I gave an umbrella to in the morning came back to see me to ask to take a picture together

On the way to the shrine there was already one of the Mikoshi parading, and a car with Mascots in it. I also took some pictures of the stalls. I love the way the stalls look in Matsuri.

At this point the coolest part started. The night Parade with the Lucky Star mikoshi.
It was really awesome to see. I took a lot of pictures and videos, but you really have to be there to understand how great this is.

Halfway through the parade, they gave the mikoshi carriers Choco coronet (actually they were peanuts coronet but whatever) and asked everyone....
What side do you star eating a Choco Coronet from?
And
Which side is the head?

Then the mikoshi went back the way it came and we walked back to the shrine following it.

Here's a playlist with all the videos of the Mikoshi parade


If you don't feel like watching them all, watch at least the last one. The finale was so awesome, with both Mikoshi, the traditional one and the Lucky Star one, standing side by side, with everyone shouting and clapping. It was really great!

That concludes my Hajisai report.
It was a great event, and I'll be going back again next year!

You cann see all the videos I took during Hajisai here:  Hajisai 2014
And you can see all my pictures from Hajisai here: (lots of similar pictures because I wanted G+ to create gifs) (Google+/Picasa)