January 1

I woke up nearly at noon. Before falling asleep, I was heard a bell ringing at a temple. I moved to my current place close to the temple 5 months before, but I hadn't cared about the bell sounds. As you may already know, there're more temples than convenience stores in Japan.

However new year's eve is a special night. The bell rings 108 times from midnight to early morning. The reason is that Buddhists believe that humans have 108 desires and the bell sounds remind people of how to control those desires.

Today a lot of people came to the temple and each one rang the bell once, so the bell rang much more than 108 times. I wished no matter how many times the bell rang, people's desires would never increase nor be uncontrollable.