Ninja boots
This time, I am following the fashion

Asakusa’s neighborhood
When moving to Tokyo, we really had no clue which neighborhood would make a good place for us to live. After some pragmatic considerations (how much commuting time and so on), we decided on the Asakusa area…..well that was a brilliant idea!
This place is actually one of the few places in Tokyo that retains the old feel of the Edo period, well kind of.

O-matsuri all year round
One great thing though, is that there are plenty of festivals (O-matsuri in Japanese) going on around here, pretty much all year round. On a sunny Saturday, as we were leaving the house, we ended up finding one of these festivals. Not sure what it was all about but it was fun, plenty of people wearing traditional outfits, including some extremely interesting shoes….the ninja boots. This is the best name Karin and I came up with. But go ahead, any suggestions are welcome.
Not only men, but also women wear them.

So…..
So, because we want to be part of the vibrant life of our neighborhood, we are making attempts at blending in better. Granted, I for one, start with the disadvantage of being tall and white…I won’t let go. Recently I was mentioning the need for us to buy a Yukata (this traditional Japanese summer outfit that people here wear when they go out to festivals, fireworks, cherry blossom parties, etc). Well, following the same idea, Karin had the awesome idea to get me some Ninja boots for my birthday…
Well now, I’ve got to figure out when to wear them. Meanwhile, check them out…And the funniest thing is that we found these in the “construction workers equipment” section of Tokyu Hands (a big DIY shop in Tokyo). And as a matter fact, everyday you can walk by a construction site and see ninjas working there (at least ninja boots shoed people).

Next (ninja) steps
The Obvious next step is to better understand how ninja behaved. And I already have my little idea for this….Near our place; there is a neighborhood named Yanaka. On the Yanaka’s map (ok I admit, it was a touristy map with English translation), they mention a ninja fence….a ninja fence, what is this…?? Beats me! We walked around the neighborhood (which is by the way lovely), but we could not find the ninja fence. Well now, I am gonna go back, equipped with my ninja boots and I will find this fence….

- Nico
These boots are made for walking and that’s [not] just what they do….