Police Van
On New Year’s Day, the street leading to Musashi Ichinomiya Hikawa Jinja takes on a slightly surreal calm, enforced by a very practical police van parked squarely across the road. It sits there like a polite but immovable suggestion that you will be walking from here. The van marks the boundary between everyday traffic and the slow-moving tide of people arriving for hatsumōde, the first shrine visit of the year.