Tuesday, June 18, 2019

6/16 Sunday

Hello! This is Nate Hayward, a senior at the high school. For our second day of touring Tokyo, we went to a place called Nakamise, a long street lined with souvenir shops and food stands that leads to one of the most famous temples in Tokyo. We broke up into a three small groups and very quickly got lost in the huge crowds. Thankfullly, it was a straight street and we knew we were all meeting at the end of it. Some of us definitely took longer shopping than others!

At the end of Nakamise, we gathered together and went to a huge temple complex. In the middle was a place called Sensoji. We learned how to properly pray at the temple, and it was interesting to be able to experience how to cover ourselves with incense at the shrine for good luck. Sensoji itself was a huge, beautiful building, but surrounding the temple were many smaller shrines that are dedicated to various gods and people. I really cannot express how astoundingly beautiful this place was, and it really drove home the feeling that we were in Japan.

On your way to the next location, we tried a popular local street food: melon bread ice cream. They take freshly baked melon flavored bread that has been covered in sugar, and then fill it with vanilla ice cream. You won’t find so,etching like this back home, and that is a shame because it was delicious.

We traveled to an area called Kappabashi, a different shopping district named after a traditional Japanese monster, the Kappa. After taking pictures with a kappa statue, we stumbled into a street festival. We learned about Japanese festivals in class, so it was really cool to run into one. The main part was a kind of mini parade, beginning with a large cart filled with children playing traditional instruments. The coolest part was the last section, where about 30 people were carrying what Balsomico-sensei said was a one ton shrine, and they were bouncing it up and down while dancing around.

We then went to a place called Akihabara, Tokyo’s electronics and anime district. We saw many things there we’d call strange. For example, after leaving the station, we saw a woman sittiing in a small fake tank in front of a store, wearing a blonde wig and holding a fork. Why was she holding a fork? I don’t think we will ever know. While many things here were very weird to us, it was still a very interesting part of Japanese culture.

We then had a late lunch/early dinner at what’s called a maid cafe. This was another unique kind of place. The place is staffed by women dressed as maids, who use a super formal type of Japanese only used by, well, maids. In order to call a waitress, you had to say “nya” (the Japanese onomatopoeia for a cat) and make cat like gestures with your hands. When your food arrived, you couldn’t eat it until you followed the waitress in a series of cute hand gestures while saying things like “let’s make this foo delicious with love” and various Japanese animal onomatopoeia words. This is something you would never find in America, so while it was strange, it was such a fascinating experience.

We finished the day with a trip to Meiji shrine, another sprawling shrine complex, but different in that while it was in the middle of one of the most crowded cities, it was surrounded by nature and very peaceful and quiet. We saw the largest torii gate we’ve yet to see,and after a peaceful relaxing walk, we headed back to our rooms. Truth be told, we had a lot to prepare for the home stay.

On the street to Kappabashi

Tank Lady?

First part of the matsuri parade 

Meiji Shrine 

Meiji Shrine 

In front of the Sensoji Gates

Melon bread ice cream

Picture with our waitress, making cat gestures 

In the middle of Akihabara 

Nakamise





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