Tag: Shrines

A full day of many different activities.

So after our temple day, we had another early morning wake up. I got up at 7 and headed down for breakfast at 730am. I’m started to get used to the time zone which is cool but I kinda liked waking up that early. It was nice to have so much time to relax and see empty places. Also it’s gonna make readjusting to New Jersey so much harder.

Now that I’m done with my tangent, our first activity of the day was a Zazen mediation with a monk. Zazen is a mediation style that has the participant cross their legs, breathe through their nose, have a straight posture, and eyes half closed. We walked into the temple to be greeted by the head monk who would direct us. We took off our shoes and walked into the temple. He told us some history of the temple and zazen, gave is a demonstration, and we started. Two 15 minutes sessions were planned for us.

The first 15 minutes went fine for me, however I lost feeling in my left leg since we were sitting with each foot on our thighs. Also the monk was walking around with this wooden stick ( that I’m currently forgetting the name of) and if you wanted you could bow down and he would hit your shoulders with the stick to refocus you.

The second session was better since I did a regular criss cross Apple sauce pose for my legs but my shoulder did really hurt near the end so I volunteered to get whacked. It actually felt really good on my shoulders. After our meditation we all got some goodies from the temple and left.

Here’s Ritchie meditating. ( Photo creds to Todd)

After mediation we headed back towards the Kiyomizu temple area ( from the day before) and had a tea ceremony! We had to split up into 2 groups since we’re a large group so half did tea first other did some walking and then we switched. I was in the walking group first and we got to see some more temples and cool old architecture. We also saw a Pokémon sewer cover! It was a 40 minute walk. I didn’t expect to be outside that much so I ended up with a little red on my face but it’s ok.


After our walk we had the tea ceremony. It was a fantastic experience where the host showed us the proper way to prepare matcha tea and how to act in the tea room. She was so pretty in her kimono and spoke very good English. After her presentation we got the opportunity to have some tea sweets and make our own matcha tea. I haven’t had matcha tea before but it was really good!


After the tea ceremony we headed to Nishiki market around 12:30. It’s a very famous market with a lot of food vendors. I got some snoopy themed taiyaki and some steak on a stick. This is where we were let free to explore until about 6pm.


In my free time, Kat and I decided to go to the nearby Pokemon Center. It was about 5 minutes away by walking but we had to wait 50 minutes to get into the store. Once we got in I grabbed some cool items and some plushies and waited 45 minutes to check out. It was a cool center because it was Kyoto themed with a traditionally dressed Pikachu and the legendaries from Pokémon Silver and Gold which was based in Kyoto.


After our Pokémon adventure, Kat and I met up with Belle and Chloe to head over to our next required activity, bowling at round One. Round One is a super large entertainment complex filled with arcades, claw machines, gambling, bowling, etc. We bowled 3 games with some of the Japanese students. I was in a group with Belle, Chloe, and one of the KCG students who was from Sri Lanka! Her name was Maruni. I bowled pretty bad the first 2 games. I was starving and hangry. Once I got some fries I was doing really well. We finished bowling, said goodbye to the KCG students, and went downstairs to game.

There was some really cool rhythm game machines that I played on for way too long. They had the classic DDR but they also had games I’ve never seen in the states. It was so cool and I even found a game that reminded me of a game I play on my own computer, Osu! I was pretty good at that one. We played for about an hour and a half then headed home around 10:30pm. We walked back to the subway and went back to the hotel. I went to bed around 12:30 and passed out.

What a cool day of traditional and modern things! I had a blast and am now very very tired and a little sunburned but it’s ok. See ya next time blog!

More photos:

Night Parade of 1001 Buddhas

Sanjūsangen-dō Buddhist Temple

Today was another jam packed tourism day with our girl Yuko. The itinerary for the day included Zazen meditation in the morning, then we went to a Buddhist temple, then to a tea ceremony/tour of a popular Kyoto street, and then free time for lunch. This might have been my favorite day of the trip so far because the Buddhist temple we went to was just so cool. It was home to 1001 Buddha statues, including a bunch of different deities and one massive statue of Kannon, the Goddess of Mercy.

The temple we learned Zazen at

The first thing on the list was the Zazen meditation early in the morning. We bussed over to a temple and were taught how to perform Zazen by the monk who is in charge of that specific temple. Zazen is a form of meditation in which one sits up straight, puts their left foot on their right thigh, their right foot on their left thigh, closes their eyes half way, looks at the ground one meter ahead of them, and breaths in and out whilst counting to 10. It was very difficult to get my legs into the position of the meditation, but I was able to do it for the most part until it got too painful. Overall I really enjoyed the experience since it was very relaxing. I also picked up a fortune for 200 yen that Toshi sensei read for me. It was a good fortune :).

Pond outside of the Sanjūsangen-dō Buddhist Temple

Next was the Buddhist temple Sanjūsangen-dō. This place was insane. The courtyard outside of the room for viewing the Buddha statues was gorgeous and the statues were sooo cool. Most of the statues were smallish 1000 armed statues of Kannon, but there was a statue of most, if not all, other Buddhist deities. It looked like a literal army it was so cool. I don’t remember all of the deities but they had one for the God of Thunder and one for the God of Wind. The deity statues were insanely detailed and really impressive works of art. However, the most impressive thing in the room was the massive statue of Kannon, the Goddess of Mercy. Kannon is said to have 11 heads for better seeing the suffering of mankind, and 1000 hands to help all of those in need. This statue was so unbelievably cool, but I don’t have pictures of it because they weren’t allowed.

Tea I made at the tea ceremony

The last thing on the list for the day was a tea ceremony. We went back to the same street that led up to the Buddha temple from yesterday, but this time we took a different route to the tea ceremony place. It was a really cool experience to learn the traditional art of Japanese tea ceremonies. Apparently there are a bunch of schools you can go to in Japan to specifically learn the tea ceremony. Our instructor was a woman who has been practicing the ceremony for 5 years, and she said she was still very new. For this ceremony we made matcha tea. The ceremony consisted of cleaning your tools, pooring the water, putting in the matcha, and then whisking the tea until it is done. It was really cool to watch the instructor commence the ceremony so elegantly. After the instructor made a cup of tea it was our turn to whisk our own tea. It was really good tea and the experience was super fun. There was a way to whisk the tea as well. We had to whisk only forward and backward, not left and right. If there were bubbles we were meant to slowly move the whisking motion to the left or right to break the bubbles, but the motion had to still be forward.

We had to split up our group into a group of 8 and a group of 12, since we were such a large group. While the other group was doing the ceremony Yuko gave us a tour of the street, which was cool. We saw a shrine with a bunch of these rolled up monkeys placed along a wall. The monkeys are meant to represent the human desires, and rolling them up is a way to symbolically remove those desires from your body and mind. Overall it was a really fun day, but it was long. After the tea ceremony we went back to Kyoto station and split up to eat dinner, then we just went back to the hotel and chilled.

don’t uh. don’t read this one maybe? it’s so long i’m really sorry.

big day. big day big post. let’s get into it.

first thing on the agenda was the meditation and it happened.

[i present this image of the beautiful scenery with no comment.]

the next thing that was meaningful to me was the tea ceremony. while in the back of my mind i am aware that the existence of complicated dining customs are unnecessarily esoteric and exist to other people who are outside of an ingroup, there is no denying that watching a master demonstrate an expertly studied skill has its allure no matter what. at the end we had a candy that is traditionally eaten with ceremonial tea, which FOR THE LIFE OF ME i cannot recall the name of but i simply must have more. we also made our own tea at the end, which. you know i really thought i liked matcha but now i’m not so sure!

[i still like matcha. but maybe in a form where it is so diluted it is basically a neat aftertaste.]

my favorite shrine was the yasaka shrine! we were given a full 5 minutes to walk around and in that time i feel like i got a decent lay of the land, it had a bunch of smaller shrines around and i really wish i could have read the signs. the layout was overall really pleasing and it seemed like a great place to just pass some time.

[selfie? i’m gonna bring silhouettes back.]

for lunch the tour guide turned us loose in the nishiki market which had the best color scheme i’ve ever seen in an covered market. we were packed in there which made walking (and eating) very awkward, and i had a full meal of two (2) green tea ice cream cones. the environment was very unique and managed to be bright and colorful without feeling sickly, which, especially with green lighting is a major accomplishment. i appreciate everyone for letting me hang around, it was fun moving and planning as a group, even if it was complicated. after bowling we walked down this road again and it was such a vibe shift i needed to mention it.

[there’s a horror game concept in here somewhere.]

so. bowling. once upon a time i could have done this but my hands can barely draw and type let alone hurl multiple heavy objects accurately across multiple feet. i got through two rounds i think? but i was in a lot of pain and had to stop (still am? uh oh). not before getting a strike completely by accident though! neat. the bowling descended into an abstract art piece from here on where one of my teammates was determined to get a zero on every roll, and later put as many bowling balls in the gutter as humanly possible without knocking them in. it was an experiment in how much bowling can you not do while still participating in “bowling.” liam was doing well though, dude expertly outplayed a child and a cripple while desperately trying to get the worst menu in the world to feed us something 🙂 (dude deserves a medal. thanks liam.)

about the kid. i’m sure a few people noticed that i seemingly adopted a child during bowling who i was talking to more than my peers. kris knew a lot about fish, liked mudskippers, and wanted to be a marine biologist, but didn’t know you needed math to be a scientist. upon being placed in my team they asked me in the following order; my pronouns, if i liked googly eyes, and if i liked minecraft. when it was time to go, they ran up to me and liam with a giant meat-shaped plushie they won in a claw game in the arcade, and his dad asked us if we were okay taking a photo with him. their dad gave us a look like we were being nice and doing him a favor, which was kind but didn’t feel quite right.

i don’t know if you could tell from the everything about me but i don’t have the best relationship with my family. i never had younger sibling and cousins, and even if i could in the future it is unlikely that i will ever meet them. i am at a time in my life where i am uncomfortable with how little i can picture my own future, and what kinds of people i will be able to safely maintain relationships with. today made me so happy i could not describe it in a word.

:2

Trail Mix

Today was a nice blend of traditional Japanese cultural experiences in the morning and free exploration in the afternoon. We visited two temples in the morning, and participated in two special activities to immerse ourselves in the culture more thoroughly.

The first place we visited was the Shōrin-ji temple, a sub-temple where meditation known as zazen is performed and taught by a single monk. We got the chance to do this meditation for two fifteen minute intervals, though it personally wasn’t very relaxing. We had to keep our backs straight the entire time, fold our feet into a criss cross position and breathe as you count to ten over and over again. If you began to find it difficult to focus or get sleepy, you can bow over and have the monk smack your back with a wooden stick to refocus you. While the whole experience was a bit more exhausting than relaxing for me, it was really cool to get a glimpse into the deeper workings of Japanese religion. I couldn’t imagine doing zazen for six to eight hours a day like the monks do.

The second temple we visited was the Rengeo-in temple, home to a national treasure of Japan. Within the main building of the temple are a thousand statues of Buddha (and a few other statues of various Buddhist gods). We were not allowed to take pictures of the inside of the temple, but there was a beautiful garden and some gates that we were allowed to take photos of.

The other cultural experience that we had today was the opportunity to take a class about tea ceremonies, and participate in one of our own. Formal tea ceremonies can last as long as four hours, but ours was only 40 minutes – a very nice woman gave some background information and a demonstration and then we were allowed to mix our own tea.

I personally have never had matcha before today and the matcha tea that we made was a bit too bitter for my tastes. On the other hand, the small jelly candies called “wagashi” that we ate before making the tea were positively delicious!

As we waited for the other half of the class to participate in their own tea ceremony, we had the chance to explore some more of the area around the Kiyomizu-dera shrine that I mentioned yesterday. We were able to find some really nice photo ops, visit a shrine that featured some colorful decorations to celebrate the monkey deities, and my first (and possibly only) Pokemon manhole cover in Japan. There are many of them spread throughout the country, but we only have the chance to see 2 or maybe 3 at most with where we are visiting.

To finish our time with the tour guide that we’ve spent the last two days with (shout out to Yuko for being fantastic in every way), we were dropped off outside the Nishiki market, a very popular food market in Kyoto. While most of the food featured in the market is fish-related, I found an incredible beef skewer stand that I then convinced nearly half the class to buy rib skewers from (and nobody complained). We would pass by this market again later at night as we were heading back to the hotel, and seeing it deserted after being packed into the small street like sardines just hours before was a weird feeling.

A mostly deserted Nishiki Market, strongly contrasting its usual crowded appearance.

After a failed attempt at getting into the Pokemon Center Kyoto, we headed back to the hotel to recharge before a night of bowling with some KCG students at Round1 Stadium. While I wasn’t initially excited to go bowling (especially when I found out that Japan doesn’t have bumpers as an option— like what’s up with that??) I ended up doing a LOT better than expected and even won a game! We then stayed there a bit too late playing various rhythm games in the arcade section of the building, and didn’t make it back to the hotel until nearly 11 o’clock. Since we have to be up and at ‘em at 7 am tomorrow to jump on a train to Hiroshima, I’ll definitely be spending my commute catching some extra Z’s.

speedrun

hello. welcome to my first late post. it was bound to happen eventually but this was a hell of a day.

i woke up at a crisp 4:53 and had breakfast listening to the french tourists behind me talk about the museum they were going to. i really like the funny looking garden space in our hotel it’s unique and fun to look at.

[i wouldn’t call myself a competent french speaker especially since i’ve completely stopped studying it for 4 years now but it is genuinely very exciting to practice my comprehension with the tourists here. i truly wish i had more time for language learning but alas i kind of need to spend all of my learning energy on things that will get me a job at the moment…]

after breakfast it was full on off to the races. i’m gonna be honest everything was so fast and i got so tired that i don’t particularly remember a lot of the details, but i will talk about a few of my favorites.

the bamboo forest at tenryu-ji went hard. that was really an experience i couldn’t have gotten anywhere else. you don’t get trees that tall in most other forests, the feeling of being covered by something that tall was new. the bamboo didn’t grow like trees, with even spacing between them and their neat, even shape throughout provided a clearer view of the forest floor than usual. The thinness of the bamboo also meant that they bent more in the wind, with the small leaves above behaving in a fabric-like manner. i’m considering going too another bamboo forest on a free day. i don’t feel like i had as much time to process this as i would have liked.

[this area, like all of them, was very crowded. it was hard to get a good picture because we couldn’t stop, that’s gonna be a theme throughout the day.]

i don’t have any pictures of this but midday me, fabian, liam, and pavel went to a ramen place that was very small but inexpensive. this tonkatsu ramen was my first proper ramen in japan (i wasn’t into soup last time i was here…). the taste was good, although not too different from ramen i’ve had from home. it came with an extra korokke which was taken away before its time which i am legitimately still bothered by… (i think the server assumed i wasn’t gonna eat it because i didn’t put it in the ramen but ah… the disappointment…)

alright. last anecdote. this place is probably in everyone’s accounts due to its scale, but the kiyomizu-dera temple was unreal. like all of the places we visited, i really wish i could have had the chance to give this place the time it deserved. especially when it comes to these elaborate shrine and temple constructs, that were made to be contemplated and appreciated slowly, intentionally, it feels wrong to breeze through. to move so quickly that a steady, well positioned photo is barely achievable, let alone any reflection or deeper connection. i am aware that this is the nature of a tour, i suppose i just prefer to see a few things very well than many things all at once.

[you could spend days in this complex and the surrounding town. the scale was inspiring.]

this is more or less where my day ended for me. i was very physically strained and was struggling to stand up, so quickly after the movie at KCG i went to the hotel, ate a day old rice ball, and passed out. it’s been real. g’night y’all :2

Kyoto Any%

Today we quite literally spedrun some of Kyotos most popular sightseeing destinations. Many of these temples and shrines are considered national treasures of Japan, and it was genuinely some of the most gorgeous scenery and gardens I’ve ever been to.

First, we saw the Kinkaku-ji temple. Known for its golden exterior and pavilion architecture, it overlooked a gorgeous pond and picturesque scenery. The photos genuinely do not do it justice.

Next, we headed to the Arashiyama Area where we saw another gorgeous temple and zen garden, as well as an amazing bamboo forest. I felt so small in comparison to the bamboo. At the Arashiyama area we got some delicious udon before hitting the road once again.

Our next destination on the tour was the Kiyomizu-dera temple. This temple is known for its amazing mountain-top view of Kyoto and its iconic red temples. This temple is a Buddhist temple, with Buddhism being one of the major religions practiced in Japan. Again, pictures and words cannot do this view justice. The Kiyomizu temple was my personal favorite destination of the day.

Finally, we headed to the Fushimi-Inari Shinto shrine.

This shrine is a Shinto shrine. Shintoism is the native religion of Japan, and is known for its red Torii gates and emphasis on natural deities found everywhere in life. This particular shrine is protected by the fox messenger, or Imari. We walked through 1,000 Torii gates, and sometime in the future I would love to do the full 2 hour hike up the mountain through all the gates.

Speedrunning Kyoto, any%

We woke up early and had a very nice breakfast-box. We were introduced to our tour guide who taught us some basic Japanese and gave us the rundown of our visits during the day. Afterwards, we hopped on the bus and began our trip around Kyoto.

Our first location was the Kinkaku-ji Shrine, known for its Golden Pavilion. It was absolutely gorgeous and learning the history behind it’s petty construction was super interesting to hear. We also learned about the waterfall of carp-to-dragon evolution and I was able to sink two coins into the spiritual pots.

The Golden Pavilion

After a quick roundtrip around the shrine, we hopped on the bus and speed towards the Arashiyama Area, where we would see the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove. I’ve always loved the bamboo look and aesthetic, and to see a whole park covered in it was surely a sight to see.

A path in the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove

After the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove, we went to go get some lunch in the Arashiyama Area. Maddy, Brody, Esther, and I found a nice little hole-in-the-wall place where I had some amazing beef udon and a cola. Afterwards, we found the rest of the group at the local train station and got some ice cream. However, our tight schedule had little room for leisure, so we hopped onto the bus and continued our journey around Kyoto.

Our third place was Kiyomizu-dera Temple, a Zen Buddhist Temple. Personally, this was my favorite location of the day. The views were incredible, the architecture was unique, and the overall aesthetic was tranquil. Though it was extremely busy, I loved being on top of the stage, looking above almost all of Kyoto.

A view from the front of the Kiyomizu-dera Temple
The view from further onto the stage of the Kiyomizu-dera Temple

I forgot to mention that the walk up towards the temple was also super cute and quaint. We walked through what was essentially a Japanese Diagon Alley, with plenty of food and apparel flanking the small street. After our visit to Kiyomizu-dera Temple, I found a honey drink place where I got a delicious mango-honey float.

Our last location was the Fushimi-Inari Temple, a Shinto temple with 10,000 torii gates! We did a small prayer before walking up a little bit of the path around the mountain. Unfortunately, we didn’t have 2 hours to spare, nor the energy to climb, and we had to cut our trip short, but mot without some amazing sights.

Me standing beneath the torii gates

We also went to a small shrine, where we made a wish and picked up a rock (a crude explanation for what was actually happening), the rock symbolized the weight of our wishes. My rock was easier to lift than expected, which hopefully means my wish will be easier to achieve.

After our abridged visit to Fushimi-Inari Temple, we went to KCG’s school and watched Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Mugen Train, which would make it my fourth viewing of the movie. Afterwards, we were let loose to get dinner, where most of us went to the AEON Mall food court.

Our trip through Kyoto was quick, but still awesome. I could’ve easily spent a whole day in each area. I am excited to continue experiencing Japanese culture, especially through our meditation and tea ceremony in the morning!

Templetrotters

Today was exhausting, but full of cultural knowledge and a lot of great photo ops. We visited one shrine, two temples, and the famous bamboo forest. This blog will be lots of pictures, both because I don’t have much to talk about and because I’m falling asleep as I write this!

The first place we visited was the Kinkaku-ji temple, most well known for the golden temple that lay at the middle of its grounds. This temple was covered in gold leaf to make a statement about how wealthy the shogun was when he retired, but is not completely preserved in time as it has burned down twice since it’s construction. The most recent was in the 1950s, which is pretty close to us when you consider that this temple has been around since the late 14th century.

Next, we visited the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove, which was absolutely gorgeous. Being able to walk through something that I’ve seen so many videos of online was a really weird feeling. We did walk through a small portion of a nearby temple, but the bamboo forest was certainly the highlight. We were also able to get lunch in the surrounding shopping market, where we got some nice large chicken nuggets (listen, last night was a lot for me, i needed some comfort today) and a strawberry and vanilla ice cream cone. I was also able to snag a chocolate bun and some canned maple bread from the Miffy-themed bakery near the food court where we ate.

After that we visited one of the coolest parts of Tokyo in my opinion, which is the Kiyomizu-dera temple and the surrounding shopping district. The path leading up to the temple has preserved a traditional aesthetic, and even more modern stores like Starbucks still feel ancient compared to other things we’ve seen so far.

We are planning on returning here for our free day so that we can visit when it’s a bit less crowded, but the views from the temple are very pretty and we were able to get a group photo here that I’m sure will be in everyone’s post for today. I love the red and gold aesthetic of all of the shrines in Japan, and this one certainly did not disappoint while also having its own flair.

Finally, we visited the Fushimi Inari Shrine, which is the only Shinto shrine that we visited and also a very popular tourist spot. The sheer number of gates that we walked through is really cool – each gate was donated to the shrine by someone for anywhere from 300,000 yen ($2,000) to well over a million yen for a large one. There is a two hour hiking trail that I’m sure would be very fun, but after all of the walking we’ve done since getting here I don’t think my body would survive it.

Once we were done with the bus tour, we were dropped off at KCG’s main building for an anime movie showing. We watched Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Movie: Mugen Train (long name, I know – those are pretty common for animated Japanese movies) and I honestly really enjoyed it. The animation style and quality of the movie is fantastic, and this might have convinced me to finally watch the anime.

To finish the day, we got food at a local mall’s food court. I got some pork dumplings, while Jessica, Chloe and Skylar got the biggest naan we’ve ever seen. We have to be up super early tomorrow for a meditation and tea ceremony, so expect some more traditional cultural vibes tomorrow!

The Glory of Asakusa

Ever stumbled into one of the largest festivals in the city you’re visiting by pure chance? It’s pretty incredible.

We started Day 3 with another visit to the Tokyo Skytree, both to visit a small coffee shop that we wanted to eat breakfast at and to clean up any loose ends we might have missed in the massive mall. After we had our fill of expensive boutiques and character stores, we decided to explore the other side of Japan: the traditional shrines.

Visiting the shrine was actually an afterthought to the ramen shop that we wanted to visit for dinner, a place that looked like a small local store that turned out to be full of tourists like us. But the food was good! As someone who’s never had real ramen before (and ordered a dipping ramen instead of the more traditional pre-mixed bowl out of a need for control) it was definitely an intimidating experience, but it really was delicious. As we were eating, we heard a group of men chanting outside as they slowly passed the shop… but we didn’t think anything of it.

To end the night, we decided to visit the Senso-Ji temple, a Buddhist temple that was sprawling and breathtaking. It wasn’t super busy because it was so late at night, but there was a drum performance happening which we stopped to watch amongst all of our picture taking. We did notice that there was a banner displaying the dates from May 19th to May 21st, and were surprised by the idea that we had managed to visit the shrine during a festival! We decided to go back tomorrow to see the shrine during the day, and look at what festivities they might have during this celebration.

We could never have been prepared for the gravity of what we had so luckily stumbled into, which turned out to be Asakusa Sanja Matsuri: one of the biggest and greatest festivals that Tokyo had to offer.

To say that there were a lot of people there was an understatement. Towards the beginning of the day (up until 11:30, maybe noon?) we were able to get up close to a lot of the main attraction, which was a parade of shrines being carried throughout various parts of the temple grounds with lots of chanting, deaf-inducing whistle blowing, and good atmosphere. But once we had left the main area and began to wander through the side streets, which were packed with stores and restaurants, the crowd became an ocean. The festival is said to attract over 1.8 million visitors in its 3 day runtime, and I truly believe it now that I’ve been in the middle of it.

Getting to see something so integral to the culture and religion of Japan was truly fascinating, and we are incredibly lucky to have accidentally walked into it on a whim. It was also fun to walk through an area that we had previously seen closed up and ghostly the night before, now alive with people and chock full of goodies to buy (which I obviously partook in). But eventually my social battery had reached its limit of being shoulder to shoulder with strangers, and we hurried back to our respective hotels to recharge as we had on days prior.

For dinner, we decided to head to an American-themed diner for a look at Japan’s perspective of our culture (and also, admittedly, for a bit of familiarity amongst a lot of exhaustion for new foreign food on my part). It felt like being tossed 30 years into the past, and the atmosphere was cozy and fun despite not being something I think I’d ever find in the U.S. today. I had a cheeseburger and fries which was a very enjoyable meal, and we exchanged a conversation with one of the waiters who was curious about why we were in Japan (and probably why we were choosing to eat American food in Japan when we certainly have enough of it back home).

We ended the night by walking along the Sumida River and taking a peek at a couple of smaller shrines, though we could only access one of them as the others were gated off due to the time. It’s nice to experience such a saturated area of culture and then contrast it with the ability to quietly experience the edges of it solo, without the fear of being judged for being unfamiliar with the details.

Tomorrow begins my daily blog posts, which I am praying I will be able to keep up with. I am visiting the Pokemon Cafe tomorrow, which is my most anticipated event, so I’m sure there will be lots of pictures! I’ll end with some more miscellaneous pictures from the festival (I could create a photo album of pictures just from today, seriously.)