It was such a beautiful morning.
We woke up on our own at 3 am,
wide awake and completely disoriented.
Serious time changes happened on the way here.
It was about 5:20 and 35º when we went looking for the Gokoku-ji Temple.
The Japanese make a big deal about the New Year, and all its firsts.
Like the first time you see a sunrise (Hatsuhinode),
and the first time you visit a temple or shrine (Hatsumōde).
Being at a temple while seeing the very first sunrise of the year, then,
is pretty much the hotness.
One of the traditions is getting a fortune for the New Year
at one of these shrines.
If you get a fortune that isn't positive,
you can tie it to a tree, or sometimes a fence,
in order to make sure it doesn't come true.
Meryl picked us a not so great one, which was cool,
because I wanted to tie it to the branches more than I wanted a good blessing.
I walked around Tokyo from before the sun rose till after it set.
And I think my legs are going to fall off.
What am I doing today?
Walking around Tokyo.
All of those photos were taken before 9 am,
and I'm trying not to over do it.
Meryl will be updating our flickr account later, and I'll post a link then.
There's a secret lighthouse we're trying to find today.
There's so very little information about it (in English) online,
so I wrote down the kanji translation, and we're going to find it.
No matter what.
Our friend Alex is meeting up with us tomorrow.
He lives here now, and is fluent in Japanese,
so we'll be in really good shape then.
