The mystery of Lynda's baggage mountain is close to being solved--I've discovered that she's brought 4 jackets! One for each season in case winter is coming. If you just didn't understand this, then you need a healthy dose of Game of Thrones.
After a nice tuna sandwich with wasabi for breakfast and my sinuses being cleared from said wasabi, we went back to Asakusa to see some more of the Sanja Matsuri Festival.
It is considered one of the largest and rowdiest Shinto festivals in Tokyo and lasts 3 days, yesterday's parade starting off day 1. Today, we wanted to go see the neighborhood mikoshi being brought to the temple and shrine to be blessed, before being carried around into their neighborhood of origin. Mikoshi are portable shrines. If you want to know the difference between temples and shrines, read my previous blogs! Adresses are in one of my previous entries.
We waited around on another hot and sticky day on a very busy street in Asakusa for some mikoshi to show up, when one of the rikshaw runners, who are very numerous in that area, started talking to us in English. He told us a little bit about the festival; turns out he had spent some time in West Virginia and also had learned German at the university. He said it was the first time he spoke German to an American (and I'm sure to a Brit too). His name was Suga--in true West Virginian fashion he pronounced it "Shuga" as in suger. Nice!
One mikoshi finally showed up:
That was good enough for me and we headed out on the subway for a visit to the Meiji Jingu shrine and its garden. We planned our day today around the most important event in all human history, according to my resident Brit: the royal wedding! I was in it for only one reason: witnessing Ms. Meghan achieving what Ms. Simpson had attempted and besting her by not only being divorced and a foreigner, but also being biracial. But I was going to do it in appropriate surroundings and find an English pub where we could follow along on Lynda's tablet. This earth-shattering event was happening at 8 p.m. our time, so we had to have all of our sightseeing done by then.
Off we went to the Meiji Jingu Shrine, but got out one stop sooner, because we wanted to walk along the designer strip to see what all is above our pay grade. Turns out, it's a lot! Then again, why waste money on designer clothing when you have Goodwill?
Dior, Vitton, Kohrs, and whatever other designer you can think of--their stores are all here.
But enough of unnecessary things--lets get to the shrine. There looked like what seemed to be several weddings there.
Outer torii
Sake barrels
Inner torii
Lynda, reminding me that the wedding is at 8
Royalty will have to wait, because we have one more stop to make--Shinjuku, featuring the busiest train station in the world and entertainment district. It's grimy, gritty and interesting! I've also been told that it's Yakuza (Japanese Mafia) territory and a very popular spot with tourists. It may be Yakuza playground, but even in Tokyo the crime rate is very low. We've noticed business people in cafes leaving their handbags and attache cases laying on the table by their lonesome selves, while they go to the toilet. Try pulling that one in Chicago!
Time to eat! After all, we're here for some serious food business. And this time, I was going to be real serious; the choice of the day was fugu--blowfish. Lynda asked me what she should do if I started not feeling well. I told her to not worry about the not feeling well part; if fugu is prepared wrong, it's pretty much immediate death. The cook did a good job and I didn't become a ghost writer.
The fugu is the fried dish in the front
Our very nice waitress, who had an American husband and spoke English, told us about a nearby shrine, so we visited that before THE WEDDING.
THE WEDDING was about to start, so we hoofed it back to our hotel area where we had seen a British pub called "8 Taps". We had it all planned out: Set up the tablet to live stream the event while I would act uninterested and use the time to update the blog; we'd have some drinks and maybe a snack or two. This place was anything but an English pub, nor any country's pub. More like a McDonald's with curry. The only thing British about it was the flag in the window. Nope, wouldn't do and it was getting close to 8 o'clock! Lynda had remembered an Irish pub close by and we made it there just in time. Sorry, Irish people, for using your pub to view an English event, but nobody noticed because there was not one Irish person in there.
After some technical difficulties, resulting panic attacks and BBC being cursed, YouTube saved the day and the unfolding of history was watched live and in color.
No tissues were harmed in the watching of this event!
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