Happy New Year, everyone.
It’s been a while on the blog.
My camera broke for a while, and when I went back home I didn’t have a card reader to transfer photos from camera to PC — so I let the blog slide.
With that as context, here’s a roundup of what happened around the New Year.
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Toyokawa Inari
Made my New Year shrine visit here — packed with people, as you can see.
Apparently among the highest-visited shrines in Japan for the New Year.
Police were managing the crowd by letting people through in batches, so the queue moved surprisingly smoothly given the numbers.
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The Akafuku Main Store near Ise Jingu
I visited Ise Jingu too, but Akafuku was still not for sale.
What they were selling instead: Ise udon!
Hmm. Since it requires preparation, I passed.
The Akafuku main store had a notice posted on it. Here it is:
As you’d expect, there was an official notice about the indefinite suspension of operations — but look at the bottom left. (Click to enlarge.)
There are messages of support written there.
People really do want Akafuku to come back.
When will it return? There were many food mislabeling scandals around that time, and personally I think Akafuku’s was among the more serious ones.
And yet there are people cheering them on. A complicated issue.