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Published: September 18th 2006
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Asakusa...is a tourist trap. It's really interesting too though. I had some trouble getting there because my station required me walking all over a town to get to the subway. Bah to that, but I made it in time to hear the last bit of Shin-san's speech. Shin-san is one awesome guy.
So first we got to walk around Senso-ji Temple (Asakusa Kannon Temple). It's Buddhist, as indicated by the word "temple" (Shinto has "shrines"). BIG temple, really old temple. It's a feeling I can't really describe to stand in a building that's been around since 645. If you're interested,
here's a good site about all the history. We got to the gate and went through a shopping mall area, where I bought some presents for people (Christmas comes early, don't ya know) and just generally gaped at all the tourists. When we got to the inside of the temple, or the inner part, really, you get a bit overwhelmed. There's a smell of incense with the noise of fortunes and running water, as well as the clinking of coins being offered. The first thing we did was to purify ourselves using incense. The idea is that you waft the smoke to where you want the bad
spirits exorcised or an area to be blessed, and some of the sticks can be taken out to be done over the whole body. Then we offered 100 yen for a fortune. This is really fun. You shake a metal canister and then pull out a stick with a number on it. You find the drawer with that number and take the fortune inside. Then, you tie the fortune to the rack if you don't want it.
After getting our fortunes, we went to the interior of the temple. It's so spacious, so vast, so old and yet so beautiful. There's really no way to describe how it feels to be in there. It really made me excited to go to Nikko and Nagano.
After the temple, we took a water taxi to where we ate chanko, a traditional sumo meal. Our particular chanko had tofu, carrots, lettuce, chicken, green onions, mushrooms and fried tofu called inari, in a soy sauce broth. It comes in a cast iron pot that you cook everything in, and then dish it out as you eat. After you've eaten everything or almost everything out of the pot, you add udon noodles to
the broth, let them warm up and eat those. It was really delicious.
On the way to the sumo arena, I talked a little with Shin-san and I had my belief I'm a terrible person confirmed when I made him laugh about 5 times in a row. To explain: Shin-san says things like "I don't want to care about you guys," "If you don't have friends in America, you won't have friends here - we don't like losers," and such. Shin-san is possibly THE man of Japan, when Yoshiki's out of the country.
At sumo, we saw the lower-ranking wrestlers and got bored quickly. Because it's very religious, you have a lot of chanting, throwing salt to purify the ring, stomping to squash bad spirits, rinsing of the mouth and body to purify it, waving ceremonial fans (that look like kitsch to me) and the like. For a 30 second bout, you have about 12 minutes of the above. We saw around 5 matches, stayed for the entrance of the next rank and their dance, and the entrance of the Yokozuma. They wear these ceremonial aprons, which will cost around $20000 minimum. They all come from the same
The main avenue
This leads up to the temple and there are tons of shops along this. place, have gold and silver embroidery, are handmade and some can be inlaid with diamonds or other jewels. Some people were really into it but I personally couldn't really understand what was going on, though we did see some good bouts. By "good" I mean that the wrestlers were relatively evenly matched so it took some time for one to win.
Concerts
I sent out an email regarding the Miyavi concert. For PURE ROCK JAPAN at Shibuya O-EAST, I got to be in the camera pit, leaning on the stage taking pictures. Too bad my camera isn't that good for that kind of thing. I'd really like a camera that can take good pictures at concerts. The bands that played weren't big at all, but I made a good contact while I was there and it was good experience for me. Once I get the live report from it (I did not write this one) I'll put it up.
Tonight is the Moi dix Mois concert, and from what I understand, it's totally different from everything else because Mana is very strict and detail-oriented.
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