The main tradition was Mamemaki where famous celebrities throw roasted soybeans into big crowds and yell "demons out! luck in!" and in this case you go to a temple and you try to catch some.
Another one is where you eat makizushi sushi and eat it facing the compass direction for good luck that year!
I moved to a smaller more-quaint hostel today. Only 13 ppl max in whole hostel! Much nicer aesthetic and more of a chance to be with Japanese people. One of the 4 employees wasn't busy so she took me & showed me some of the stuff & made some of the special sushi and shared it. Soo cool. Good hostel move I think. My last one didn't even have a rule to have shoes-off.
Tokyo's geisha throwing some beans!
TV celebs, famous sports coaches, actors, all of whom I didn't know lol. Still catching the beans was fun. Reminds you of the time you tried to catch lollies when a float went by when you were a kid.
Groups of dances? Someone said they were Meiko or geisha-in-training but I don't think that was right.
Biiiiiig crowds, but everyone so polite haha
Walking home some of the girls who threw the beans (i think they were a famous performance group maybe?) they did a street puppet performance and small dance. Cool to see.
