hello internet dyce quirk here and today in this video we're going to be covering the weather
festivals and events that take place in the month of january in japan and honestly january
can be an amazing month to come and visit the country but be warned early january is also a
major holiday season for locals and so there's going to be a lot of closed businesses a lot of
atms that literally you could find no money in being a cash-based society that's a pretty
big deal also because of a lot of locals visiting their hometowns their families and
local shrines most of the transportation or public transportation is going to be loaded to the brim
so if those cons don't scare you away let's not waste time and let's get to it
in january you can expect a much more chilling temperature compared to most of the year
with morning temperatures in tokyo fukuoka and osaka averaging around 35 to 37 degrees Fahrenheit
while afternoon temperatures can hit an average high of only around 50 degrees fahrenheit or
if you're way up north in sapporo you can see morning temperatures averaging around 18 degrees
fahrenheit with an afternoon temperature only hitting a high of around 30 degrees fahrenheit
this all however does really pair well with the good chance of sunny dry weather which means that
january ends up becoming the peak season for skiing in japan with december having a lack of
snow in the early part of the month and february being just a little bit too warm having some of
the snow just melting it makes january have a surplus of snow compared to the rest of the
year and so you won't be able to see any other time in japan that's better for skiing and with
january being the start of the new year there's actually a number of traditions that are used to
mark the beginning of the year such as hotsumode which is basically like black friday in japan
where you can find discounts all over the place in a bunch of different locations and also you
can find this thing called a fukubukuro which is basically like a lucky bag essentially it's a bag
where you can't see everything that's inside of it and it has a discounted price and the value of
everything inside of the bag is much higher than what you paid for the value of the bag however
again you have no idea what's in it another big tradition is hatsumode which is basically like
first shrine visits of the year it's a tradition of going to a shrine at the very beginning of
the year and it kind of leads into our very first big festival or event that takes place
in japan in the month of january and that is japanese new year occurring on january 1st
you can bet that japan's new year celebration is a huge event for the entire country as on
december 31st at midnight you can actually hear bells ringing everywhere in the country
as different buddhist temples ring their bells 108 times to symbolize the 108 human sins and to get
rid of the 108 worldly desires that are a part of their belief and with many families actually
visiting shrines for the tradition of hatsumode as well as spending time with their families
it's also commonplace for families to get together and make traditional food for new
year's as well as play some traditional new year's japanese games the new year celebration actually
also makes for an incredibly busy late december and early january for post offices in japan and
that's because it's customary to send a new year's day card to both family and friends in japan and
the thing that makes it kind of difficult for post offices over there is they make and kind of
like an amazon guarantee that they will get those postcards to the people that they're being sent to
on january 1st no earlier no later and that's of course assuming that you turn those postcards in
by the deadline these postcards are actually really similar to our western christmas cards
however these new year's day cards were originally sent to different family members
and friends that you wouldn't normally see to let them know that you were alive and well
well mainly actually just alive in fact there's actually another custom tied to this where you're
not technically supposed to send these new year's day cards to certain people if somebody passed
away in the family within that year instead one of the family members would send out a mochu hagaki
which is basically another form a postcard that is just letting all the relatives know not to send
any new year's day cards out of respect for the dead on a lighter note there's actually another
tradition tied to new year's in japan and that is otoshidama and this is where the adults inside of
the family will give children inside of the family small decorated envelopes which are called pochi
bukuro and these pochi bukuro are filled with a sum of money which can vary depending on the
number of children in the family and the age of the child following new year's is another very
special holiday in japan called coming of age day and this takes place on the second monday
of january in japan and it celebrates all of the people in japan that have turned 20 since the very
last coming of age day and something at least in my mind that makes it really unique compared
to a lot of western holidays is that this holiday is actually celebrated in the public squares and
the city halls in each one of the prefectures in japan and sadly because we're foreigners we can't
participate in this event but it does create a unique opportunity to be able to see a lot
of exquisite kimono as a lot of the women uh that are turning 20 for this event will wear uh their
own traditional kimono so uh it's definitely still a really cool sight to see following not too far
behind the coming of age day celebration is the sanjusan gendo archery contest which takes place
on january 14th and at this competition you can find over 2 000 practitioners of kudo which is the
japanese art of archery and they all come to this contest at the sanju-san gendo buddhist temple
and they all come to compete in the contest in honor of the art of kudo and another interesting
thing about this festival or competition is that a lot of the women that just celebrated the coming
of age day celebration will wear their kimono to this event as well so regardless if you know a
lot about archery or about kudo it still could be a really interesting event to go to where
you can see a lot of tradition coming together now this next festival actually takes place on
january 9th and it's called the hatsuichi dharma festival and the entire festival revolves around
these guys this right here is a daruma doll and in japan these daruma dolls are
used essentially for setting goals but we actually made an entire culture bite video
which is a one minute lesson that covers everything you need to know about a particular
topic and in our culture bite video we talk about not only everything that is kind of referenced in
this doll but also a couple little secrets about it as well so make sure you check that
out after this video and as you can see uh our goal that we set for this daughter on the doll
is one thousand subscribers at the daruma festival you can find nearly hundred different stalls all
selling daruma and different charms but the real festival kind of starts at around 10 am though
and that's because that is when the hachiman temple will start burning all of the daruma from
the previous year and that's because these dharma are not only supposed to be helping you do better
at achieving your goals it's also supposed to be filled with luck and so you're sending all that
luck back up to heaven having said that it's kind of an interesting and profitable system let's say
you buy one you fail you bring it to the temple and burn it and then you think you know what i
failed last time i'll buy another one and try again or you buy one you succeed you bring it in
you burn it and then you're like well you know what that worked so i should buy another one
yeah it really is quite profitable um technically you don't need to burn them
you could keep them a lot of different places in japan do and a lot of people in japan do
but traditionally that's what you should do so let me know in the comments if you think
when we hit our 1000 subscriber goal when we hit that goal should we keep this or should we burn
it again let me know in the comments and make sure to check out that dharma culture by video
and finally kind of my favorite festival in all the month of january in japan which takes place
on the fourth saturday of the month is wakakusa if you haven't really picked up on this channel yet
that i really really like fire um you might want to watch some of my other videos where i talk
about other festivals with fire because i really do love it and this event is probably the biggest
fire related festival in all of japan at this festival there's fireworks food
a cracker throwing competition and also a tradition called
yamayaki which literally is translated to burning and yes it is as cool as it sounds a number of
monks from different buddhist temples in the area of nara including todaiji temple hike up mount
wakakusa to a bonfire that they had pre-made and set it aflame and those flames spread engulfing
the entire face of the mountain with flames that can be seen from any part of the city below
i love japan also if you are interested in seeing more events or festivals in the month of january
uh check out some of these i've listed each one of them inside of the description as well i
tried to make sure in this video i saved your time by just picking out the ones i thought were really
interesting or fun also seriously let us know in the comments if you're a pyro and let us know what
the fate of this guy should be uh after we hit our 1000 subscribers tell me what his fate should
be should we burn him should we keep him and get multiple colors for each subscriber goal just let
me know and if you could make sure you check out his video where we talk about what dharma are or
any of our old other culture bite videos where we take one minute to go over a single cultural topic
uh and if you have a topic that you'd like me to go over in one minute and make a one minute
lesson for let me know i'll try my best and also if you like this video please remember
to comment like subscribe and share so that we can continue to make awesome content for you because
we are all about helping you experience japan so with all that said thank you and dyce quirk out