Guiding Shimane

I had a lecture which was held by a volunteer tour guide group about guiding for foreign tourists in Shimane prefecture from American young man.  He came from New York with JET program. He has been here for 18 months. 

He said that tourists visiting Shimane want to have special experiences here. Special experiences they don't have in big cities. 

After his presentation, we discussed recommend spot in here, Matsue. The presentation and discussion were held in English. We had a good time today. 

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                        にほんブログ村

Matsue Castle to be a National Treasure

Matsue Castle will become a National Treasure again. It used to be a National Treasure, but the title was once removed from the castle. 

As I belong to a volunteer guide group to the castle, I'm really glad to hear the news. I want many people to know the value of the castle. Only 12 castles still remain in the original construction. Matsue Castle is one of them. The others are not original buildings. 

In Meiji era, the castle was about to sell by Japanese government at the price of 180 yen, but some wealthy citizens bought it back to our city. I really thank to the people otherwise we don't have such a great treasure in my city for now. 

にほんブログ村

Volunteer Guiding

I've thanks to joined an English volunteer guide group in my city, Matsue, without taking any English tests since last year. I also wasn't asked my TOEIC score or Eiken grades. Looking around the other members, there are many retired English teachers or majored in English. I have to study English and the castle more. 

Our main work is guiding foreign visitors to Matsue Castle in English. Yesterday was the last time this year because we are off in the winter. I was at the information desk almost once a month. But in my turns, I didn't have any opportunities to guide a visitor to the castle. Of course there are lots of foreign visitors here, but many of them are come from Taiwan, Korea and China. 

Matsue is an inconvenient city to come from big cities in Japan because of lack of traffic facilities. But other than that, my city is a good place to visit. We have historical remains, buildings and tasty food from the Japanese sea, Lake Shinji and farmers around the city. 

I would like to do something to increase the number of visitors here from around the world. What should I do for that?

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Tea and Sweets

Today, I'll tell you about tea in my city. I live in Matsue, Shimane prefecture. Matsue is not a good place to cultivate tea trees, but we drink a lot of green tea. In fact, we consume the second largest amount of green tea next to Shizuoka. 

We usually drink green tea at 10 am and 3 pm. At the tea time, we have not only sweets but also have pickles and nishime, boiled veritable dishes with tea. 

Many families drink maccha green tea casually. We usually drink matcha without tea ceremony form. 

Since we drink a lot of green tea, there are many good Japanese sweets shop here. According to a survey, we spend the largest amount of money among all over Japan on wagashi, Japanese sweets. Of course the sweets here are so nice. Why don't you come here to have delicious sweets and tea?

Guiding

I went to Matsue Castle for volunteer guiding today. Again, I had no tourists for guiding. Since it's summer vacation season, there were lots of visitors there but I found no forein travelers. 

I think I have to do something for getting foreign tourists. 

A Lecture for City Guide

I'm a new member of a volunteer tour guide for forein people in my city. I had a lecture in Matsue Castle tour today. Twenty people took part in the lecture. I learned how to explain the castle and how to answer questions.
Matsue Castle has its 400 years history. I don't think I can explain about the castle well but I'll try to do that as much as I can. I think I need to prepare for the guide more.
After the course, we went to a Japanese style cafe. We had matcha and Japanese sweets there. Senior members told us their experience about volunteer guide. I hope I could help many foreign tourists.

A little about my city

I live in Matsue, Shimane prefecuture. The population here is 150,000 so Matsue is not a big city. You can easily find convinience stores but we have NO starbucks here until this year. Because of the few population we don't have good pubric transportation. Many adults own a car even very old person.
 Here, we have the sixth largest lake in Japan, called Lake Shinji. The lake is famous for beautiful sunsets and yamato shijimi, a kind of clam, and its water is brackish.
Matsue also faces the Japanese sea. Many kinds of fresh fish are sold at local fish markets. You can eat tasty sashimi or other sea products here.
Our city has a 400-year-old Japanese style castle called Matsue-jo. This castle is the second largest, the third tallest (30m) and the sixth oldest one in Japan. You can tour the inside of the castle and see the whole city from the top floor. In Spring, you can see beautiful cheree blossoms there.
If you like tasty sea food and are interested in old Japanese castles, why don't you come here!