For many Japanese people the most interesting thing about the beginning of a new year is not the last seconds of the former year but to enjoy a first beautiful dawn in the new year. Here, the night of the 31st of December is quite quiet compared to other places in the world; the most important thing is the next three days: seeing the first dawn of the year, having lunch with the family, decorating houses and companies with kadomatsu and making the first visit of the year to a Shintoist temple.
This year, the Japanese airline JAL, chartered a special flight the dawn of the 1st day of the year 2011 to enjoy the first dawn of the year over Mount Fuji. This is one the pictures that were taken from the plane:
Sunrise over Mount Fuji
Photo by Mainichi