NYE In Tokyo

Well New Years was promising to be quite exciting in Tokyo. A good friend Dave had scheduled his visit to Japan from the 29th of December, just in time for some New Years Eve shenanigans and then off to the snow. However, unforseen illness hampered the celebrations. Joss had been diagnosed with a sinus infection and was on antibiotics, and by some strange coincidence Dave landed in Tokyo with a sinus infection also! And with the mercury making good friends with the lowly single digits it was not the best time to be out and about.

Nevertheless we gave it our best shot. We started the night drinking at home of course, and then headed into town to see what was going on. We were lucky enough to see the New Year in at a local temple with a great view of Tokyo Tower in the background, which had an absolutely fantastic atmosphere that made our efforts very worthwhile. After that we went into the ex-pat area called Roppongi but called it quite an early night (for a NYE anyway). Here are some pics.

The Temple that we visited on NYE seen here the day before (when they were just setting up).OK so that wasn't just ginger ale... but really it was NYE. Oh and it was 11:30 at this time, we got caught up drinking at home we nearly missed the countdown.

Coming up to the temple, the street was packed. Luckily there was a convenience shop right on the corner that had very long but efficient queues to buy a couple of celebratory beverages.

The crowd at the temple about 2 minutes until midnight.

おけましておめでと

Those white things in the distance are balloons, hundreds of them are released on 'ichi'. PM: I am not used to counting backwards in Japanese so I was a bit behind everyone else.

Dave, Nat and us just after the countdown.