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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"Mikoshi" - a portable shrine

This is Misaki Inari Shrine which is the guardian god of the Hotel Niwa Tokyo.

It is said that the Shrine was built at the end of 12th century and was relocated several times in the Edo period. Then in 1905, it was settled down in present place which is three-minute walk from the Hotel.

"Mikoshi" is a portable shrine which is usually kept in a treasure house in Shinto Shrine. When the Shrine Festival is held, the shrine parishioners carry it on their sholders and parade around the ward dressed in matching outfits called "Hanten".



The Mikoshi parade held infront of the Hotel Niwa Tokyo on May 3rd, 2010.

This year, before the parade, thankfully the people of the town came to the Hotel to display "Mikoshi" in the lobby.

This "Mikoshi" was made about 80years ago in plane wood, you can see the excellent workmanship of the carving by the creater.

These are the carvings of four scared animals or four mythological creatures which are Vermilion Bird (upper left), Black Tortoise (upper right), Azure Dragon (lower left) and White Tiger (lower right).

Finally, the displaying is finished. The golden phoenix is on the top of the "Mikoshi".

The "Mikoshi" will be displayed in the lobby until May 3rd, right before the festival starts.

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