Japan Day 5

Sorry about the late post, I was absolutely exhausted after yesterday. The tour consisted of visiting the Meiji shrine, walking around the Ginza district, and a taiko drum lesson. Each were pretty amazing in their own right. The Shinto religion beliefs a lot in the importance of void space and solemn reflection. The path leading up to the shrine was covered in gravel to prevent people walking too quickly so they would show their respect to the spirits through slow reflection. Having your head down to watch where you're going was an added interior, or so said our guide. A tad forced for a religion without any supposed dogma, haha. Still, the thick vegetation around made it a very relaxing stroll. And they did have a paved walkway for foreigners. When we finally got to the shrine itself, we allowed to take pictures in the courtyard up until we scaled the small stairway to the main... Alter? Anyway, our guide showed us proper ceremony for offering a prayer and most of the group partook. I, myself, am Christian so "praying" of any sort to another deity, whether or not I believe it's there, simply doesn't sit right with me. That was just my personal stance on the matter and I still had fun watching others perform the ritual without bringing it up as we stood respectfully to the side and waited for the tour to resume. Fun fact, Shintoism and Buddhism are closely tied in Japan. Buddhists have temples and Shintoists have shrines. You clap at the Shinto shrines because, unlike temples, there are no statues for the "gods to reside in" so they need a reminder that you're there. Somethin like that anyway. After that we went to Ginza to check out the Kabuki theatre area. Fortunately we could explore on our own because my sister and I were more interested in finding a toy store we saw on the way over. I don't even like plays or musicals back in the states so changing countries didn't suddenly spark my interest. Our efforts paid off (and paid OUT) as we found one of the most expensive toy stores we'd ever been to. The whole area was very reminiscent of an American big city, including the prices. I found nothing for FFXIV (since their merch is so vastly limited as it is) but they did have a MHX section that I lost my shit and wallet to. I really wanted the pose-able meow'nster hunter model, but it was $54 when I only had $50 on my for the day. It was maybe 5-6"... So I grabbed a much smaller model set (random prize sorta thing), tea cup, and sticker. Bye bye $40. To make things better/worse, they had a Pokemon section too. Ginza plz. Finally we had our Taiko drum lesson at Taiko Lab. Long story short: 10/10 would drum again. Our instructor Shin was very funny, knowledgable and patient with our group. Not that the latter was needed as we picked up on the 4 stage routine rather quickly. As a reward for early completion, we had one extra round of the full routine and the opportunity to watch a 5 minute piece performed by Shin on the largest taiko drum I've ever seen. It was about 4-5 ft in diameter and depth. That performance made it very easy to understand why people are superstitious here. If you didn't believe in communication with the god of thunder before, there's a good chance you'd second guess your views after seeing a performance like that. I didn't record it since I wanted to experience the whole thing without distraction. It's a performance you could feel in your bones and your spirit; not something I'll soon forget. At the end, Shin allowed us pictures with him. Of course I had to get one with us both doing the end pose for our group "performance" earlier. For dinner that night we were on our own and explored the area around our hotel. It was an... Expensive learning experience. The selection in the immediate area was sparse where we were walking and the "all you can drink for ¥2000 ($20)" sounded like a good deal. If I'd stuck to drinking, it would've been. The menu was completely in Japanese, but the waiter spoke a fair amount of English. After taking a long time nervously pondering when I asked for his suggestions, I requested he slowly read off an item in Japanese for me. He laughed a bit, but complied. I didn't understand much, but I recognized "ebi". The look of absolute shock on his face when I said "oh, shrimp?" was priceless. He then brought me 5 small and raw shrimp. I thought it was an appetizer with the price, but it was the full think I ordered. For a country next to the ocean, I didn't think such a serving constituted $8 but... Oh well. It was a small booth with a curtain, no shoes, and there were lots of Japanese business people coming there for after-work drinks. It was at least an authentic experience. Once we were done, we had to send the check back about 3 times to get rid of charges that shouldn't have been there and items we didn't order. I only had time for 3 pints of beer so I wasn't drunk enough to let that slide. I couldn't contest the ¥400 per person "table charge" though, so we still paid a little extra than expected. All in all we at least got a learning experience out of it. K my wifi time is up, I will touch base with you all again tonight.