Asakusa

Hello all,

After a fairly decent sleep last night, we've had a great first day in Tokyo. We are staying in Asakusa, an area known for its temples and famous shopping street. Our apartment is really clean and 'big' by Tokyo standards and off a surprisingly quiet main road.

We set off at about 9am and walked down the Nakamise Shopping Street, which at this stage wasn't very crowded. We each enjoyed a strawberry smoothie here, and then Dad bought a monja cheese pancake type thing which was also really delicious. We made our way to the nearby railway station after walking down here, and purchased a Nikko Pass for a day trip we are taking on Tuesday.

At 10am we joined a free walking tour with Tokyo Localised. Our guide was Sophie, a Korean who has now lived in Tokyo for 11 years. The tour went for about two hours and was a good balance information and walking wise. We didn't feel overloaded but got to learn and see some interesting things. Sophie told us that Senso-ji Temple (that Asakusa is famous for) is the oldest temple in Tokyo and was first built in the 10th century, which is also when the shopping street began. Over the centuries the temple has been destroyed numerous times by fires and WWII. It was last rebuilt 60 years ago with the help of funding by the owner of Panasonic. Once we started to make our way from the Kaminarimon Gate towards the temple, the shopping street was absolutely heaving. Sophie reckoned today was a "quiet" day - I hate to think what it is like during cherry blossom season. Tokyo is very densely populated, with about 14 million residents. Pair that with all the tourists and I guess it's unsurprising how busy it was!

Apparently in the 7th century the area was a fishing village, and Buddhism was introduced in the 6th century. Today there are 13 major streams of Buddhism. The Buddhist religion has temples such as Senso-ji, whilst there are shrines dotted around as well for the other religion in Japan, Shintoism. Apparently the two coexist harmoniously, and we saw the Asakusa Shrine right next to Senso-ji Temple as evidence of this.

As we passed through more gates further up near the temple, we saw a beautiful pagoda and then an area where you could shake a jar, obtain a stick with a number on it, then match the stick up with a drawer containing papers that read your fortune. I did one on behalf of the three of us, and ours said we were somewhat lucky. It said something like "the patient will get better, it will just take a little time" which made us all laugh as that sums up my health any time an issue pops up!! Our whole group mostly had positive fortunes, and Sophie said this was surprising as a lot of the fortunes given out here can be quite negative.

Overnight it poured with rain here, and it did try to rain on and off today. But overall the weather was perfect. 24 degrees and overcast with a slight breeze. When the clouds parted briefly we got a sense of how hot it would be in the sun, and we were grateful for the clouds.

After we left the temple precinct, Sophie took us all to some nearby side streets to show us some good eateries and drinking places. There are sushi, matcha, ramen, tempura and dumpling places everywhere! We were lucky to have a fairly small group of about ten as it meant we could gather and listen to recommendations in front of different stores pretty easily. We then finished our tour by the river with a view of the Tokyo Skytree and an apparent golden "flame" sculpture. (To me it looked more like Olaf from 'Frozen''s nose!).

Mum, Dad and I then headed to a sushi place in the covered shopping area of Asakusa. It was so popular that there was a queue, and we stumbled across the restaurant five minutes before it opened and managed to snag a table. We got to sit on stools up at the bench and watch all the delicious food being made. I'm a little limited with some things I can eat here due to pregnancy, but I enjoyed very much some sushi with grilled meats and especially enjoyed a cooked crab croquette which had a creamy interior. It was delicious!!

We then went up to the viewing deck at the Tourist Information Centre, which afforded us a wonderful view of the Senso-ji Temple and shopping street. Afterwards, we caught the metro to Ueno to visit a huge electronics store called Yotobashi Camera, which was like a ten storey high JB Hi Fi store. We purchased an adaptor to fit our Australian plugs, as the adaptors we researched and brought from home don't fit some of the powerpoints here. Since we were in the area anyway, we then enjoyed a stroll in the huge Ueno Park. We focused just on the area with the pond, which was covered in lilypads with a few flowers starting to pop out. It started to rain fairly heavily at this point so the umbrellas were put to use before we then headed back for a rest in the apartment.

Tonight, we caught the train over to the Tokyo Skytree, the tallest structure in Japan. Despite a promising forecast, visibility was very low due to cloud, so we couldn't see much. We could see some of the nearby area including Asakusa though. Dad got suckered into us taking a photo with a green screen as they told us it was free, and then it turned out the free photo was about the size of two postage stamps, and you had to pay for a bigger one!! We enjoyed a noodle dinner at a restaurant nearby, which had no signs in English and no other tourists so was really authentic.

Now we are back in the room about to have an early night ahead of visiting Tokyo Disney tomorrow!

Love to all
Claire
Xoxox