Today we are going to eat lots of food in Asakusa

Yeah! We're going with Magical Trip,

which is an online booking website where visitors to Japan can book a local tour with a local Japanese guide.

Honestly, I found out about Magical Trip tours because if you watch YouTube videos about Japan,

you might have seen other Youtubers go on one of them.

Hi!

I'm going to take you guys to Kaminari-mon, and then like the shopping district called Nakamise, and then

Sensōji Temple, and then after that we're going to Kappabashi,

which has like a lot of

kitchen stuff and then we're gonna have Okonomiyaki and Monjayaki.

Let's go!

After going through the Kaminari-mon, which is:

(Aiko) Thundergate

we entered Nakamise-dōri where you can find lots of shops to buy stuff and eat stuff

Itadakimasu (Thanks for the meal)

(Greg) What's inside?

Anko

Red bean paste

What kind of bird is that?

It's a pigeon.

Ah! And there's a lots of different tastes? Yep.

So, what did we eat?

(Aiko) Manju. (Greg) Oh Manju.

And it was pretty busy that day.

Yeah, yeah. It was really crowded. And what did we eat next?

Kibi Dango

This Kibi Dango is made out of mochi, a rice cake)

which is then covered in Kinako, a roasted soybean powder)

It's got sugar in it, so it's sweet.

So how many shops do you think there are?

(Aiko) 100

Yeah, maybe 100.

There are a lot and what are you guys pointing at?

An ice cream shop.

Ice cream? Didn't you guys just eat two desserts?

Yes.

Itadakimasu

Sweet purple potato

Veneno? Famous in Okinawa.

How was your ice cream?

Delicious.

Yummy

How was your ice cream?

It's tasty

Custard cream

(Greg) You give me custard too right?

Yeah yes.

What is this Aiko?

Ichigo Daifuku

Itadakimasu

How do we eat this?

So what kind of Daifuku did we get?

Strawberry mochi and red bean paste one and

Normal mochi and a custard cream one

(Super tasty)

This is really good!

Wow, it's so busy today

Yeah, it's like this every day, but it's kind of a good place to buy souvenirs if you're on vacation

Yeah

Do you ever go here to normally shop by yourself though?

Not really

And what gate is this?

It's the Hozomon Gate (保蔵門). It means Treasure House gate

And after you go through the gate you can get your fortune.

I pull a stick out, and it had a number on it.

And you open the box with that number and you get your...

Fortune!

(What's the fortune for three of us?)

Kyō (凶, bad luck)!

What did you get?

You will spend a long hard time working on many useless things (gasp)

Your wishes will not be realized

(Greg) Do you burn this?

What do you do with it?

Don't worry

And then you know you can tie it up

Ah, Kyō!

Uh-oh!

I'm just regular fortune

What does that mean?

Great I can do traveling this year.

Did everyone get bad fortunes that day?

No, some people had good fortunes.

(Announcement) Please take a look at this

This is the part where I'd like to say it was calm and peaceful at the Buddhist temple

that people were praying and contemplating

Well, they were praying, but it's Sensōji in present-day Japan

so it was a zoo!

Still quite an experience to behold.

And so what was in there?

Koi (鯉)

Big goldfish?

Yeah

And what is the most beautiful one there?

The golden one.

Oh, there it is!

Now we're going to Yatai's 屋台 (food stalls).

And what kind of stuff do they sell there?

Like yakisoba, or french fries, or like chocolate bananas?

And when do you see them?

We usually see them at festivals.

This is a famous melon-pan (bread) place, and a lot of actors go there.

Video video haha

Melon bread!

(laughter)

What is it? Tasty? Delicious?

Very good, yummy?

Yummy. Yummy?

What do you think? Hi

Tasty? Yummy? Delicious?

Delicious

Delcious!

Let's go!

What is this place called?

This place is called shōtengai (商店街)

Japan~

It's an open-air shopping area, but it has a roof on top so it's great if it rains!

And now we're on our way to Kappabashi.

What do you find at Kappabashi?

A lot of Kappas.

Well, originally the "kappa" part of the name didn't refer to this green little guy

But lots of people think it does, so they have lots of Kappa there now.

Kappa is like a green monster

It's like a human, and...

Turtle?

Yeah

Mixed.

What does he do?

The Kappa lives by the river, and then

You know that scares you, scares like human beings

Do these Kappa look scary to you?

This big one looks ugly.

Hahaha

And this is a knife shop.

We were going to shop for knives for you, right?

Yep!

(Ehh, probably not this one...)

Maybe yeah this one.

And next we went a food sample shop

Yeah the food looks so realistic

(Aiko) Eh, $60?

Yeah

(Greg) that's not that bad though.

Pretty good looking piece.

This is Hayu

Piece of chocolate.

Cupcake.

Sushi?

Em, Katsuo (Skipjack tuna/鰹)

In this shop, you can make some of the food on your own

Yep, they have classes upstairs or you can even buy kits and take it home with you

And now we're finally gonna eat lunch.

Yay!

What do you guys want to eat and drink?

One monja(yaki) and one okonomiyaki?

Yeah, okay

And then we can share

Kampai! Cheers!

Before this lunch had you ever eaten monja-yaki before?

Yeah, once.

This was MY first time.

Mommy told me the vegetables needed to be cooked more, so that's why I was a bit leaky.

This is monja-yaki.

Yummy

Yummy. Yummy? Yummy!

If you don't know how to or don't want to cook it, the staff can actually cook it for you.

Yeah, that's what the adults did.

This is yakisoba.

This is okonomiyaki.

Shrimp and beef mince and cabbage.

Luckily, okonomiyaki is more solid like a pancake,

So it was a lot easier to handle than the monjayaki.

(Clapping) Yeah! Nice, nice!

(Greg) Looks like you guys have been drinking

Kampai!

Yeah!

What was the highlight?

What did you enjoy the most?

Well, eating Asakusa food

We are almost same height, by the way.

(laughter)

And that's actually why we chose our local guide Mana from those available for our dates.

We needed someone who wasn't taller than Aiko

Each local guide on the magical trip website has their own profile page

where you can check out their self intros, hobbies, and reviews from other guests!

Plus, if you click on the circle,

you can watch the local guide's introduction video as well!

And there's lots of tours. For example,

This one for Tokyo classic food tour in Shinjuku,

where you can get a taste of the neon lights while hitting up the restaurants and cafes.

This area can be a bit more tricky than the food stalls at Asakusa,

as many local restaurants have Japanese-only menus.

That's where your local guide can help you out.

And here's the anime and gaming adventure tour in Akihabara.

On the tour

You can check out an old-school game shop and arcade.

You can also go to manga shops where they have figurines, gacha-pon, and well, you name it!

The reason I recommend Magical Trip is that there are tons of little things around Japan

that tourists wouldn't know about but locals would.

The local guides actually live in the area,

and will show you around their city, give you recommendations,

and help you plan out your itinerary.

And you can join as a small group so that you would enjoy the time like you would with friends!

I just talked about tours in Tokyo, but they also have ones in Osaka, Kyoto, and Hiroshima as well.

Aiko, what did you think of the tour?

So the local guide Mana was easy to talk to.

On the trip, we got to visit so many different places, and we ate so much food.

I liked how we didn't have to think about where to go or what to do.

Our local guide even called ahead to the restaurant to let them know we were running late

because we had way too many desserts at the beginning.

Once again, thanks to Magical Trip for sponsoring our tour.

Thanks for watching. See you next time. Bye!

Bye bye!