Jaunted

New Year's Eve

Tokyo New Year's Will Banish 108 Sins

December 21, 2007 at 9:30 AM | 0 Comments

Big sis HotelChatter has found a great Tokyo hotel for us for New Year's Eve, and Japan's coolest city is certainly a great place for us to celebrate the start of 2008.

The Japanese like to celebrate the coming of the new year, or oshogatsu, by visiting a temple to pray--choose one of the big Tokyo temples like the Meiji Shrine and you'll be stuck in a large but very interesting crowd.

All over Tokyo, you'll also experience the tradition of the "watch night bell", where a bell is rung 108 times, apparently because that will get rid of the 108 worldly desires. (Don't ask us for a list.) All of that makes for a noisy but quite spectacular New Year's Eve, as long as you don't overdo the sake.

Related Stories:
· Tokyo Travel coverage [Jaunted]
· New Year's Eve coverage [Jaunted]
· New Year's Eve Hotels: Tokyo's Mandarin Oriental [HotelChatter]

[Photo: danielh]