"You want to know how to find a fire?" my dad always used to say. "Don't follow the firefighters, follow the reporters." Boy, was he ever right. The guy wearing a "PRESS" armband lead me right to the Shigureden. There was a line formed and people out front.

Save for one twenty-something year-old guy (with a pink cell phone) and his girlfriend (hopefully with a different colored phone), everybody in the line is collecting their pensions and getting into movies for half price. A camera crew looms, shooting video of the small, assembled crowd. The producer keeps dragging the cameraman around, telling him to "get this" and "not forget that." Important people in dark suits guard the door.

"It's like a sport," someone behinds me says in English.
"A sport?" another says in a British accent.
"The one who takes the most cards wins."
"Oh, I see."
"We play card games during the New Year's holidays with our family."

I turn to see a Japanese woman gesticulating in a very un-Japanese way. She's lived abroad. Next to her is the British woman. Both of them are middle-aged and are chatting about the bunraku performance they saw last night. Ah, a cultural field trip.

Others talk about the relationship between the Shigureden and Nintendo, how the company fronted cash to build the space. But, I wonder if these elderly people lined up here today know that it's not only Nintendo money in this building. I mean, do they even know what a DS is, let alone what "DS" stands for?

At 12:00 Noon sharp, the doors open and a dark suit apologizes for the wait. The crowd moves forward slowly. Really slowly. One of the dark suits has to help the old lady in front of me up the stairs. A day with the geriatrics, AWOL from the nursing homes. This should be interesting.

Tradition in Kyoto's Hills [Kotaku]