Hi everybody,
Since yesterday, David got to choose the destination, I got to pick the place today. Today we went to Asakusa. It’s a famous part of Tokyo, known
for it’s temple, shrine, and gates that date back to the Edo era.
Once we got there, we took a jinrikisha – human powered
rickshaw. It was a lot of fun! The cart went really fast, and our driver was
really funny and explained a lot about the area.
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| This rickshaw is nice. It's warm and has a heated seat. |
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| Mr. Jinrikisha must be really strong since he can pull this cart quickly! |
We saw Senso-ji (temple), Kaminarimon (a famous gate), Tokyo
Skytree, and the Asahi building.
The Asahi building is cool since it’s a beer company office that looks like a beer. It’s also a bit of a pun – biiru no biru. Bi-ru
(Japanese pronunciation of “beer”) and biru (a shortened Japanese pronunciation
of “building”).
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| Asahi bi-ru building. |
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| Tokyo Skytree? It doesn't look so tall! |
Did you know that Tokyo Skytree is 634 meters tall? That’s
taller than Taipei 101 (although Skytree is technically a broadcasting tower
and not a building, but still)! According to our rickshaw driver, the building
was designed to represent “Musashi” an old name for a region in present day
Tokyo. Mu – 6, Sa – 3, and Shi – 4 = 634! I hope to see the city from the top
of Tokyo Skytree soon! I bet it’s really pretty, especially at night!
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| Wash your paws and mouth before entering the temple. |
We then saw the temple. There are a lot of interesting
traditions regarding temples. First you wash your paws and mouth in the nearby
fountain. Then you take a special smoke and wave it all around your fur. This
is sort of a cleaning thing I guess. Then you approach the temple and pray for
good luck. You can also buy a fortune (David got a bad fortune heehee).
It’s interesting because a lot of this seems very similar to
the temples in Taiwan – they too have smoke and praying and fortunes.
I met a kappa today! Kappas are weird type of Japanese
monsters. They look like a duck…sort of. I think their heads are supposedly full of
water to help them live on land.
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| Meet Mr. Kappa. |
Today we ate a weird fish called dojou or dozeu (I think the
English is river loach?). It looked kind of like an eel but had a lot of bones.
Anyways, we ate it nabe (hotpot) style, and it was surprisingly good. There
were a lot of naga-negi (green onions – Melissa wouldn’t have liked it at all
;p).
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| River loach? Ok! |
Then we had dessert: cream anmitsu. It’s kind of like jelly
blocks with red bean, ice cream, and fruit. But here you can also get it with matcha (green
tea) flavored ice cream. It’s sweet! But when I tried the matcha by itself, it
was really bitter.
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| Cream anmitsu (an - red bean). |
Dinner was good too! We ate okonomiyaki, which people may
recognize as the grilled Japanese “pancake,” and a new dish I did not know about,
omusoba. Omusoba, or omelet yakisoba, is an omelet filled with yakisoba and
then covered in ketchum. Yay ketchup!
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| Ohhhhhh-musoba! |
Our Tokyo stay is nearing an end. But tomorrow we will go
camping in Hakone with a lot of ALC friends! Yay camping! I hope it’s not too
cold!
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| More for me! |
-Sumi
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