My grandma: she’s a sweet little lady; always cooking food, cleaning up boo-boos and basically grandma-ing like a boss. Ya’ know, the way grandmas should be. This is a stark contrast to the Japanese grandma, who–well, like the title says–accosted me. Here’s our story:
We started at the Sensoji Temple in the Asakusa District in Tokyo. The whole area is busy with lots of people exploring, shopping, eating and most importantly: taking photos. Who doesn’t take photos on a vacation? At this moment, I can only think of one person who doesn’t take photos: my own grandma (who admitted this after I showed her how to use her first ever iPhone and after she took her very first selfie). So, who knows, maybe Japanese grandma is on to something. Read on to find out!
Sensoji Temple is a fairly old, colorful Buddhist temple. For a dollar, I bought a wish-prayer that said something to the effect of I’ll have good luck and all that jazz.
So pretty, let’s take a picture! That’s nice. Let’s take a photo.As we walked around Asakusa District, an area that has a lot of swap-meet style shops, we noticed just how many people were there. Seriously, it’s swarming with tons of people looking at all the cute little item for sale. Lots of things, like cute dessert-gifts, traditional Japanese toys, tiny flags, you name, they got it.
So many people. So many things to look at. Must take photo…I saw the cutest little duck-shaped cookies. Or they could have been cookies. They were in a box. They were shaped like little ducks. They looked edible and they were darling as f—. These cookies can be seen all over Japan. As if I need any more criteria to bust out my camera and take a photo to show my grandma. I also have to remember all this cuteness twenty years from now.
Just as I clicked the button to take a photo, out of nowhere like a bat out of hell, or angry ghost from a closet, or a bowel movement that has to comeoutrightnow(!!!), an older lady popped out and immediately tried to grab my phone out of my hand.
Here’s the kicker though. We’re from LA, so my mind automatically went in to “will cut a bitch” mode. Don’t get me wrong, LA is great. People should visit more. But there’s certain things we’ve learned from living here: 1) If you graduated from USC, you’re probably a douche; 2) it’s always hot, so the sweater is really just for show; 3) LA is the food capital of North America; 4) there’s only one reason to go to the valley: to get to Santa Barbara; and 5) I will honestly kill you if you try to grab my phone.
So, we wrestled for a moment and I think I may have twisted her arm (she should have let go; see point number 5 above). She then shouted some stuff and pointed to a sign that was no bigger than my big toe (about an inch) that had a camera with a red circle and a line through it.
I guess that means no photos. And for a moment, I was pretty upset that I’m no longer the Eagle Eye I once was or I would have spotted that Polly Pocket-sized sign (which reminds me, I need make an appointment to see my eye doctor).
She may or may not have asked us to delete the photo. We obliged, because jesus, I just twisted her arm. But that didn’t seem good enough because she continued to yell and I was sick of this, so we walked away.
Now, no one is saying anyone here is right or wrong. Whether a sign should be bigger (it should be bigger) is not up for argument. This merely happened and I have a memory –but no photo–to remember it 20 years from now. All I have to say is, I’m pretty happy I have a cool grandma who doesn’t care much for photos anyway.
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