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lydamorehouse
Image: Sensou-ji, a Buddhist temple in Asakusa
So... I wasn't going to do another one of these so soon, but I MIGHT be a little addicted.
A friend of mine in Canada alerted me this morning that a company called Ebisuya was doing a walking tour of Asakusa, a district in Taito City, Tokyo. I signed up and let
rachelmanija know, in case she wanted to join us. Our guide this time was an amazingly charming young Economics major named Nae-Nae (I'm not sure of the spelling, but Nae is a Japanese girl's name, so I am guessing it's just hyphenated?? Could be Naenae, or Maemae, too.) She was very forthcoming that this is a part time job for her, and that previous to the pandemic she used to be a tour guide for this company, Ebisuya, in-person.
It was apparently very cold in Japan today (tomorrow,) though I can't remember what Nae-Nae said the temperature was. In the 20s F?
Like most of the guides, she started us at the train station. Rachel asked to see a 7-11 or a Lawsons, (a combi, aka a convenience store, the type of which Japan is famous for) and by chance there was a Lawsons just there at the corner. She took us inside... only to be promptly shooed out by the owner for filming inside the store! It was pretty hilarious, honestly.
We also saw a huge line for melon pan at one of the restaurants in the covered ally she took us down on the way to Sensou-ji (Tokyo's oldest Buddhist temple.) We were all briefly confused by how long the line was until I remembered that it was noon in Tokyo. (Nae-Nae apparently lost track of time too.) It was just a long lunch line!
Most of the tour was on the temple grounds.
Image: Entrance to Sensou-ji.
Nae-Nae had to have been the most chatty of all the tour guides so far. She was really amazing at keeping up with all the chatter in the comments stream. Though, I don't think there were as many people on this tour as there was Yusuke's Fuji tour, for instance, so maybe it was a bit easier. I kept my own chatter going both with my friend in Canada in WhatsApp and on text with Rachel.
I have to admit that I sometimes forget what it's like to be absolutely new to Japanese culture. I mean, I laughed out loud when NaeNae asked us if we'd "heard of samurai," because I sometimes live in my own head in a version of the geek relationship fallacy, except it's an otaku fallacy, where I just assume of course we're all Japan nerds here. This is why I am totally 'that guy' in the chats, who is trying to drop in helpful wikipedia links to things that NaeNae discussed in passing, like wabi-sabi, but probably coming off like a raging a$$hole.
Image: If you squint you can see the koi.
Like, there was this one person in chat who did not get what Nae-Nae was saying about koi. To be fair to this commenter, I was them once, long ago, and I need to remember that because I really, really wanted to jump into the comment stream and explain it all. I held back, but it went like this: our guide was trying to explain that koi has a double meaning in Japanese. The Kanji for the the fish (鯉) and 'love' (恋) are homonyms and so are pronounced the same but are different words, right? So it is considered lucky to see a koi fish with your koi, as it were, your love. I managed to explain it pretty concisely, but, like, getting into Kanji is a whole thing? I had not known the words were homonyms until today, but, having studied the language long enough, I was totally primed for the idea that Japan is rife with homonyms. Rife. Like overly abundant in them.
Anyway, my point is, I need to remember to practice patience in the chats on these tours. I mean, the joy of having a couple of friends on other chat lines means I can snark to them.
It was fun, as always to see the people on the street. We saw a lot of people very dressed up in yukata, including one amazing woman who also had cat ears. She was hiding her face from Nae-Nae's camera, however, so even though I wish I'd taken a picture, I'm glad I didn't.
You will probably be seeing more of these? I will try not to flood my journal with nothing but HeyGo tours, but, MAN, these are addictive. I'm going to go broke bleeding out all these tips, a few bucks at a time.
More temple grounds
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Date: 2021-12-31 07:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-12-31 07:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-12-31 07:53 pm (UTC)