Japanese Buddhist tradition is to ring the Bell in your nearest Temple for the new Year Eve. Starting 11pm on 31st of December, people are gathering (understand “queueing”) to be able to makes their prayer and finish the year by noise. At 11:40, the monks are coming and praying around the giant Bell for 5mins and then welcoming people to make it ring until midnight. So everybody have 15 minutes only to reach the target… quite impossible as hundreds and hundreds of persons are lining.

For my first time at this event, I was lucky enough to be one of the first. I queued for about 45 minutes in the dry cold so I think I deserved it
Sorry, I wasn’t able to take any picture as the night was really dark and I did not want to make my paparazzi with the flash.

… and I could also see the first Ume (plum) flowers of the winter. Interesting to see how these flowers are blooming by this temperature!