New Year's Day at Meiji Jingu

The Holidays went by a little too quickly for me- we spent Christmas with our families in Utah and before we knew it we were back in Japan for New Year's eve, which we passed out and slept through due to jet lag. We dragged ourselves out of bed for New Year's day to visit Meiji Jingu shrine, which gets around 3 million visitors a year during the holiday season. Ryan was very excited to see the spectacle and the crowds. It was a cool experience to walk through the forest path with tons of other people and to see the main gate open up into the giant courtyard full of people.

It's the year of the sheep for 2015, so I was glad to find this old sweater still in my closet that dates way back to my youngin' days from a family trip to Scotland. It's so cozy and the ram is so cute- I'm glad I can still get away with wearing it with high waisted skirts. I really liked matching the giant sheep ema hanging at the entrance gate. People can buy these wood plaques and write their wish/prayer for the year on it, and it will hang in front of the shrine all year. Then they get burned on new year's eve and new ones come out for the next year.

Wishing everyone a happy new year- and here's to hoping dreams and goals come true. I'm hoping to get a job asap after getting back to Japan and to be more busy and productive, I'm hoping to take more photos of other people and grow and learn more as an artist, I'm hoping to be much better about exercising and stretching regularly, I'm hoping to gain more self control about sugar and sweets intake, and I'm hoping to improve my knitting and sewing skills to where I can actually make things I can wear and maybe sell, and I'm especially hoping to make new friends and get over social and vulnerability anxieties that have been holding me back.