Winter Day in Matsue with Multingual Friends

Hello! I’m Tomoko, a Tomodachi Guide in the San’in area. “Tomodachi” means friend.

I love to show people from other countries around the area where I live, just like we were already good friends. Today I’d like to share with you an experience I had guiding some people from China in November of 2020.

Horikawa-yuran (Horikawa-river Sightseeing Boat)

At first we took a tour on a boat called “Horikawa yuran”. This tour takes 50 min to go around the moat surrounding Matsue Castle, and we could enjoy the traditional town view and seeing many kinds of birds. There are “Kotatsu” (heated tables) on the boats in this season, so we could keep warm and relax.

Green’s Baby

The 3-year old girl in our group was really excited about the hammock in this cafe. We also enjoyed the tasty ethnic foods there.

Matsue Castle

Matsue Castle is the one of the national treasures of Japan. The castle has been preserved in its original form since the Tokugawa Era. It is sometimes called “Black Castle” after its darkly colored, austere exterior. From the top floor of the castle, we can see the same view of Matsue as samurais saw 400 years ago. Even though it was a rainy day, we felt the spirit of Matsue there.

Yushien

My guests from China told me that the peony flower is one of the national flowers of China. People really like this flower. In this flower garden we could see flowers from every season. This time we looked around the garden.

I feel like we could build a very good relationship through this trip. Thank you for this day to all. We really hope to see them again.