2012/10/10

Let's prepare for a New Year travel to Tokyo!

It's time to think about how to spend your Xmas and New Year holiday.
If you come to Hotel niwa Tokyo, you can experience traditional Japanese culture specializing in this time.
Many Japanese eat "Toshikoshi" soba noodle, for long life, on New Year's eve. There are many famous soba noodle restaurants around our hotel.

When you wake up the next morning, Hotel Niwa Tokyo will celebrate New Year' Day by traditional style "Mochi-tsuki" , a rice-cake pounding at the lobby. This is our annual event.



Anyone can experience rice pounding! After pounding is finished, we serve soft and hot rice-cake to the guests who enjoyed celebrating new year with us.



On New Year's Day,  we Japanese usually visit shrine or temple to pray for health and happiness of the year. It is called "Hatsumode", "hatsu" means first and "mode" means visit.
There are many famous shrines which are good for "Hatsumode" near Hotel Niwa Tokyo.

One of them is Kanda-Myojin Shrine. This shrine is very famous for praying success in business. 



This is Misaki-Inari Shrine, our local community shrine which is a guardian god of the Hotel Niwa Tokyo.
It is said that Tokugawa Shoguns and  feudal lords from Japan visited this shrine to pray for safety of their trips upon departure from Edo, presently Tokyo.
Since Edo era, the shrine is said to be a god of trip/journey.



At last, this is Tokyo Daijingu Shrine, which is very famous shrine for Japanese girls who is finging a romance. Most of the visitors are girls, there are boys but they are very few. They visit the shrine to pray for fulfillment in love.
There are "Omikuji", a scared lot, written in English for foreign tourists.


Hotel Niwa Tokyo offer you a wonderful time during year-end and New Year's holiday!


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