On Thursday we booked a wonderful guided tour with the Tokyo Volunteer Guide service. This free guide organization will pair you up with two local volunteers who will give you a tour and share a bit of Japanese culture and history with you.
You have 16 predetermined tour routes to choose from. We chose Route 13 "Visit Places of Spiritual Calm of Temples, Nature, Sophisticated Streets, and the Japanese Spirit". Our guides Takako and Richard were absolutely wonderful hosts. We all got on a train to Chofu Station and took a bus to the Jindai-ji temple. Jindai-ji is Tokyo’s second oldest temple after Senso-ji. As with many of the other temples we've visited on this trip, its original buildings were burned down and reconstructed (in the late 1800s) but I guess the moniker of “oldest” goes by the date the temple was established, which in this case is somewhere around the 8th century.
When we approached the temple, there was a procession of monks walking along the path and chanting. Apparently this is unusual; even our guides didn’t know why. Our guide Takako asked at the temple entrance to find out what was going on.
It turned out to be the temple’s Hana Matsuri ("Flower Festival"), which is a festival celebrating the Buddha’s birthday (in other countries the date varies but it’s recognized on April 8th here in Japan). In Japanese temples there is a tradition to “bathe the baby Buddha” by pouring a sweet hydrangea tea (ama-cha) over the head of a small buddha statue. Our guide Takako was actually pretty thrilled to happen upon this festival as she had only ever participated once before, as a young girl. Even Kevin and I were able to get in line to pour ama-cha over the statue. It was great to be with guides who could explain what was happening and why, and who could advise us on how to respectfully participate in the ceremony.
We had a wonderful tour experience with Takako and Richard. Takako was a very experienced guide -- she's been giving tours as a Tokyo Volunteer Guide for ten years and noted that we were her 175th tour! We learned so much from both guides and had very easygoing conversation with them, not just about history and the temple but also about daily life in Japan. We've taken many tours all over the world, but this one will certainly be one of the most memorable!
We arrived back in the Shinjuku area in plenty of time to see the free light projection show put on by the Metropolitan Government Building. By day, this is just your typical unassuming administration building. (Although it does have an excellent free viewing deck and cafe on the 45th floor.)
But every night after sunset it becomes a canvas for a half-hour series of animated light shows projected onto the surface. Each show lasts about five minutes and has a different theme. One that I really liked was called “Spirits of Tokyo” and featured representations of traditional folktale characters and iconic images associated with Tokyo—like the ubiquitous Maneki-neko (lucky cat with one paw raised).
Another fun one was a giant Pac Man game. Pac Man originated here in 1980 and took the world by storm. I have great childhood memories of playing this game on my neighbor’s Atari console. (My family wasn’t cool enough to have an Atari.)
Speaking of games that are big in Japan, we had been thinking about going to see a baseball game. The Tokyo Giants are very popular and decent tickets to home games in the Tokyo Dome were sold out. So we settled for some tickets to see the Yakult Swallows instead. But that turned out to be a good thing. For one, the game was a lot closer to our apartment and easier to get to. And more importantly, the Swallows play at the 100-year-old Meiji Jingu Stadium. This historic treasure is one of four remaining big-league stadiums where Babe Ruth played (the others are Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, and Koshien Stadium in Hyogo, Japan). Ruth came to Japan in 1934 on an all-star American League goodwill tour that included players like Lou Gehrig, Earl Averill, Lefty Gomez, and manager Connie Mack. I’m not a huge baseball fan, but even I could appreciate being in such a historic stadium to watch a game.
We rooted for the home team like the song tells you to do, but unfortunately they lost 0-1 to the Chunichi Dragons. We were so impressed by the energy of both the home and away team’s fan base. Whenever their team was up to bat, the home side (from right field to home plate) or the away side (left field to home plate) would sing cheer songs all in unison accompanied by loud drums and horns. And during the seventh inning stretch, the Swallows fans all got out these tiny umbrellas for a synchronized “umbrella dance”. It was a very fun atmosphere and so great to be a part of it!
Boy oh boy just when we think it can’t rain anymore, it pours again! Today we waited out the rain until late in the afternoon when we were able to get up to the Shibuya area and get dinner without getting soaked. We also had tickets to an English-language stand-up show at the Tokyo Comedy Bar. The comics were mostly expats who are living in Japan and their observations on the cultural differences were hilarious. We had a great time and it was a fun way to spend a Saturday night. But the final joke was on us -- it was still raining when it was time to go home!
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