Crowds flock to shrines across Japan to celebrate New Year

Tokyo: Hundreds of thousands of people visited shrines across Japan to welcome the New Year.

It was the first time since 2019 that no COVID restrictions were in place since the Japanese government downgraded the pandemic’s status to the same as the flu last May.

Sensoji and Meii shrines in Tokyo were packed with Japanese and foreign visitors from early morning in a practice known as hatsumode. The shrines remained open all day from midnight Sunday.

Hatsumode is the first visit to a shrine or temple during the first few days of January, where family and relatives pray together for a fortunate year ahead. Some of the most popular shrines and temples organize festivities with stalls that sell food, omikuji (fortune-telling strips of paper for drawing) and lucky charms to wish for safety, prosperity of descendants, good exam results, love and wealth.

Solaseed Air operated a special New Year’s Day flight, showing passengers the first sunrise above Boso Peninsula in Chiba Prefecture.