New Year's Eve in Tokyo

The day before New year's eve, Dana and I decided it would be very nice to experience a big countdown gathering, downtown Tokyo. We were luckily able to find a room in a hotel for the 31st at night, which was pretty amazing. Since the trains weren't running late to bring us back home, we were going to have to find a solution anyways. We left early during the day and were on site at 8:00 p.m., just in time to grab some balloons they were handing out to the first 3000 people. Dana had done a very good job getting all the infos concerning the event and it paid off. Lots of people later that night asked us where to get the balloons but it was way too late for them. It was pretty spectacular to watch everybody release their balloon at the sound of midnight, along with the cheers and cameras going off. Very different from what I'm used to back home (in a house or a bar, quick countdown and then the party goes on) or New York (watching the ball go down on t.v.).
I'm glad I was able to witness it here.
Tokyo tour was standing tall right behind
Zojoji temple, main temple for the "pure land"
sect of buddhism. People jammed themselves
up in front of it, which was so crowded you
could only see heads from right to left. Shortly after the new year arrived, everybody started a massive movement towards the temple, trying to get inside to pay their first respects of the year. We were a bit caught off guard, not intending to go there, but we figured it would be better to go with the flow. People were civilized though, and
the security agents did a good job letting waves of people come in and out. We took a few pictures of the Big Buddha and got out. We called it quits since there weren't any bars to go to in the area.
Happy new year to everyone in the States and Québec, I will try to be with some of you at the same time next year.
Best wishes,

Michel