New Year 2009

From the first of January and the following few days the streets round Osu Kannon are crowded with people making their first visit to the local temple to pray for a healthy and prosperous twelve months.The first days of each New Year are full of firsts for example "hatsumode" the first temple visit or "hatsuhimode" catching the first sunrise of the New Year.
There are others including as I found out earlier in the week "the first ride of the year".Around 10am last Thursday the first day of 2009 I was awoken by the deafening noise of motorcycles pulling up outside the convenience store below my apartment building.
Grabbing my camera I lumbered downstairs to see what was happening.





















I struck up a conversation in my poor broken Japanese with this very personable biker.
It seems that he and friends go on a group ride together every January 1st to celebrate the new year and the convenience store was the starting point for the ride.
He seemed very proud of his Triumph motorcycle.He didnt mind posing in front of it,much to the amusement of his fellow motorcyclists who numbered round a dozen or so.

















Of the dozen or so bikes parked up the majority were either British or American.I only spotted a lone Japanese motorcycle among the Triumphs,BMWs and a few Harleys.
After about half an hour waiting for stragglers to arrive the group left en masse in an orderly fashion in the direction of Nagoya Port.