January 2, 2020
About 5,000 people headed to a Nuuanu Shinto shrine on New Year's Day for a popular cultural tradition. They had a priest gives them blessings for the new year, and they could also buy good luck charms to keep that luck going through the year.
Organizers say the crowd was bigger than usual at the Daijingu Temple of Hawaii. Our Diane Ako volunteers there as a priestess or "miko" and spent part of the morning blessing visitors. It's an ancient Japanese tradition that is based in the Shinto religion but welcomes all faiths.