Being Tourists

Even though we feel a certain amount of mild distain towards the over tourism situation and thus tourists in general, we sometimes intentionally fall into that category. In between school, work and life, it happens sometimes. Last week, we intentionally booked a very touristy thing in Asakusa - a ninja experience and guided tour at the Samurai and Ninja Museum. It was actually nice to tell the girls that we were intentionally going to be tourists, and Asakusa is only one 20min train ride away, so just the closeness of the destination made it relaxed and fun. 

The experience itself did feel a bit slap dash, "for the tourists", but the guided tour was full of interesting information and cool things to look at. We did get to dress up as samurai and ninja, which the girls loved, and also practice our "ninja skills". 

Throwing the shuriken (throwing stars) was fun - Steve was the most successful of us, but the real highlight was trying the blowing darts. We even tried lying down and shooting. So cool! I was pretty excited to get a bullseye on my first shot, even if I didn't maintain my accuracy going on. 

At the start of May, we also went to a local festival thing at a sports centre near us. This felt much less touristy, way more local, but still lots of fun. There were sumo athletes there, traditional music performance, mochi (rice cakes) making and a stack of other stuff. 

It was cool to see the quintessential Japanese things being embraced by just every day people, not just put on for the tourists. Rachel and I had a go at pounding the rice into mochi, just like the sumo in the picture did. So much fun!