Revisiting Senso-ji Temple - Asakusa

As anyone who has been to Tokyo knows one of the key traditional-variety sites to see is Senso-ji Temple, and if anyone comes to visit I'll be sure to take you there! I put a pic up of this a while back but I went there again last week with my friend Sayoko and an out town friend of her's (Rajesh) and took some more pictures that I thought would be fun to post.

Tokyo is such a modern, neon light infused city - so its nice to step out of that sometimes and take in some history. The legend says that in 628, 2 brothers were fishing in the Sumida river and somehow caught a statue of Kannon, the goddess of mercy. Even though they put the statue back into the river, it always returned to them. Consequently, Sensoji was built for the goddess of Kannon. The temple was completed in 645, making it Tokyo's oldest temple.

Unfortunately one of the big gates going into the temple is under repair so I don't have any breathtaking shots of the whole thing but sometimes pics of the nooks and crannies of these places are more interesting anyway ;-) Here is one of my favorite shots where you are supposed to rinse your hands before going to the temple.





















This smoke (I think incense) is suppose to heal whatever part of your body you waft over you. One lady was wafting it over her head, I'm not going to speculate what might be her problem ;-) I tried to put my knees up there for some healing magic but as you can imagine it didn't work out too well - and yep - they are still hurting - oh well better luck next time ;-)
















This is a view of Nakamise Street, which is a 200 meter area leading up to the temple where you can find all sorts of traditional things like hand crafted toys, traditional sweets as well as modern toys and trinkets for souvenirs.
















This is a bean shop, lots of different kinds of roasted beans. I love the colors here.















Here are some modern Japanese snacks. Interestingly my friend Teneal is doing her thesis on the Japanese sweets as such gift giving is a long-time custom in Japan. Some sweets are even political! Certain ones are the sweets of the Imperial Family or even more interesting some have pictures of Yakushima Shrine which is the temple housing Japan's war dead including some Class A War criminals, which still causes tension between Japan, Korea and China whenever a Japanese prime minister pays a visit there. These here are just some fun ones though.