Christmas and New Year

It may be a little late but here is our description of what Christmas and New Year are like in Japan...

Christmas in Japan

In Japan Christmas is not a very big celebration. Shops and some other places have Christmas lights, but shops are open and people still work on Christmas Day because it is a normal day.
At lake near by they have a big Christmas tree and lots of Christmas lights and a Christmas market which we visited.

Children in Japan instead of having a stocking may get a big present from Santa. There isn't special food like Mince Pies and Christmas pudding, but they do have Christmas cake, but Christmas cake in Japan is a soft sponge cake and has lots of cream.

Japanese New Year

On New Years Eve we went to a Buddhist temple. We went to the temple just before midnight. At the shrine we rang a huge bell and had a drink made from fermented rice, and is a bit like thin porridge.
The day after new year we got money as a present from family and relatives. Children in Japan get money at New Year as they don't get much for presents at Christmas.

We also had a big family meal with lots of different food.

Just after New Year we went to a Shinto shrine. We put some money in a box and got a good luck charm to keep us safe. Lots of people in Japan do this and the temple was very busy.

High speed Linear motor train

In Japan they are developing the Linear motorcar. The Linear motorcar is a high speed "Linimo", a Linimo is a magnetic train that doesn't have wheels but hovers, it is also called maglev.
We went to see the test track at Otsuki, it is currently 42km long. They will try to extend it to Tokyo before the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, One day it will go all the way to Osaka, which is hundreds of kilometers.
First we saw it outside, it was gone in a second and was very loud. it was so fast we couldn't even see it properly. Then we went to the exhibition center so we could see different models of it more clearly.
When we saw the Linear motorcar, it went 300km/h but it can really go up to 500km/h.

Ekiden

Recently we went to the Tokyo-Hakone Ekiden. An ekiden is like a relay marathon and instead of a baton the runners use a sash. They only allow people who are at university to do it. It is an annual event on the 2nd and 3rd of January. The race is over 100 km each day. It is a popular event to watch in Japan.  The crowds cheered when the runners came running. There were 23 teams taking part. This year was the 90th time they did it. We got up at 6:30am and got there at 8:30am. We used 2 trains to get there. The weather was sunny but cold.