I have spent many New Year's in Japan. It is really big but strangely subdued. The whole family will congregate at the parent's house. The food will be ordered in - sushi, sashimi, kagi, fugu, kaki, kojira - aaaaggghhhh. Kojira is the only Japanese food that I refuse to eat. It is whale meat. This will be the subject of a future post. All settled in. The telly is on showing the NHK New Year Concert. We all sing along to the songs. Some are old favourites, others are recent pop hits. Always there is SMAP - the oldest boy band in the world. This is not a drunken revel. It's a family occasion. All the adults are drinking, but in a slow happy way. Taking it easy getting tipsy slowly.

The kids (our nephews and nieces) are going feral. Running around the house being crazy. It's their last chance to go stupid before High School.

When the concert winds up, it's time to go to the temple. All of us (adults and kids) troop up to the temple. It's at the top of the hill overlooking town. 337 steps to be exact. I counted. Ring the bell in the forecourt of the temple at midnight. The bell is going constantly. Time to say thank you to Buddha, everyone goes inside the temple to pray. I wait outside. I am not Buddhist. Wind back 2 years. My wife's brother was conspicuously absent from the family celebrations. At the temple my wife persuades me to go inside. There is no disregard for non-believers. Shoes off, kneeling and praying in the temple I say a Christian prayer. I chat to a buddhist monk. Stand up and walk backwards.

My wife's brother appears from nowhere. He says "Follow me". Have you ever wondered what happens in the back room of a buddhist temple ?

I follow my brother in law to a back room. It is full of really drunk blokes. I mean reallllly pissed. One bloke is naked from the waist down. He has been dakked, jocks and all. He is running around the room desperately trying to get his trousers back from a couple of blokes who are desperately trying to keep them out of his reach.

My barber is there, slumped in the corner unconscious.

Some serious drinking has been going on but I want no part of it. Koichi says "Please stay and drink with us". I cannot offend him by saying no. I accept a drink but really I don't want to be a part of these shenanigans. I stay for 15 minutes. I do NOT fall into the trap of downing my sake quickly only to have it refilled out of nowhere.

I escape through a side door into the snow shoeless. Damn, where are my shoes. I walk in my socks through snow round to the front of the temple and find my shoes. Five minutes later I find my wife and she says "Where have you been?"

Patrick Quinlan
January 2005