Emperors New Year Speech on January 2nd

After celebrating the New Year Holiday at home. I decided to meet up with some of my old friends from University to attend the Japanese Emperors New Year Speech on January 2nd.

This is a big event in Japan. Many Japanese people as well as Japan Nationalists come to view this great event every year.

 Thus, there are long lines in order to see the emperor`s speech. My friend decided to attend the earliest speech possible because that is when most of the royal family comes out to greet people (common folk). Thus, I decided to wake up at 7 in order to get there before our 8:30 scheduled time. 

As usual, I over calculated my time and I arrived at the station at around seven thirty am which meant I would have to wait over an hour for my friends. Moreover, I was really tired and had to use the restroom really bad. Thus, I decided to look for a coffee shop or restaurant to use the restroom and get a fresh cup of coffee. However, everything was closed which meant I had to walk about 15 minutes to the nearest Starbucks to use the restroom.


After using the restroom and drinking a nice hot cup of coffee, I headed back to the station to meet up with my friends. I arrived at the station at around eight twenty and they had already been waiting for me. After meeting up with them, we headed to view the emperor.


We arrived at the entrance of the palace at around 9 am just in time to get into line and wait for another hour to get in. As you are waiting to enter the palace you can see many kinds of interesting figures. Most of them are extreme nationalists and Japanese Yakuza.




















At around 9:30 the gates opened up and we were allowed on the palace grounds where we lined up and viewed the whole two minute speech and then were quickly ushered out. The speech was really short compared to previous years( I don't blame him, he is quite old ). Luckily,  I am tall. If you are short or typical Japanese height it is almost impossible to view the family during the speech because everyone waves Japan flags during the whole event and scream bonsai!!!!.