Nyohoji (the Buddist Temple)

At Nyohoji there is a 2 day festival that will come to a close today. This festival runs straight through; the temple is always open, though I don't how many people would show up at 3 am to pray. After work yesterday I walked over with Yuri and Mitsumi (our Japanese office staff) and we met my Japanese teacher Fumiko. There was a really long line to bang the gong and pray at the temple. Many people had bags of New Years decorations - straw wreaths, bamboo, and other Japanese branches. The temple collects all the decorations and burns them to start the new year.
We didn't stand in the line to pray, but we did get in the line to ring the huge bell. It's the only time all year that the public is allowed to ring the bell. After ringing the bell we looked around the booths. Like all the other festivals, there were tons of booths with yummy festival (Japanese junk) food. Some booths were a little different for the New Year. There were lots of places where you could buy darma dolls (to make wishes), or cows (since it's the year of the cow), blessed arrows to purify your home or mini decorated rakes to rake in good luck, and plastic cherry blossom branches hung with old style money coins. The colors were amazing; like a bright neon rainbow littered with gold pieces. We were looking at the branches when all of a sudden there were 3 or 4 photographers taking our picture. It was like flies on honey. Was it because we were cute? Was it because I'm a gaijin (foreigner)? Probably the latter, but it was fun and nerve racking at the same time. I would have taken a picture of them, but unfortunately I didn't have my camera :(