Sensōji (浅草寺)

After renting a kimono, we went to the oldest temple in Tokyo - Sensōji (浅草寺, also known as Asakusa Kannon Temple). Sensōji is one of the famous tourist spot in Tokyo. It is filled with tourists from different places even though January is a non-peak season. One of the things that I like about Tokyo is that most tourist spots are free admission. This enables us to travel Tokyo with a small budget as we only need to spend on the necessities like flight ticket, accommodation and transport. This post contains a lot picture of me in kimono as I took lots of pictures of myself to make the money I paid worthwhile. Haha

To enter the temple, we have to pass through the outer gate of Sensōji which is the Kaminarimon (Thunder Gate). I am attracted to the giant red lantern at the gate. There are keychains/magnets/miniature lanterns for sale in the shopping street but I didn’t get any of them because I think that it is quite pricy. Now I deeply regretted my decision! 

After the Thunder gate, we are greeted with a stretch of shops at the shopping street called Nakamise. This shopping street is located between the outer and second gate of them temple. Other than local Asakusa snacks and typical souvenirs (keychain, t-shirt, postcard, etc), there are also Japanese traditional items such Yukata, fans, ninja swords and so on. You can easily spend hours in such small area to slowly discover each and every item. We however did not spend much time there as we have a busy day ahead. The only item we bought from this shopping street is a snack called agemanju which is a battered and deep fried soft cake with fillings. 

Then we reached the second gate called Hozomon (Treasure-House Gate) after we passed through the shopping street. Behind the Hozomon is Sensōji’s main hall where all the statues located.

 Main hall (image from google – I realized I didn’t have a full picture of the main hall L )

You can get incense sticks from the booth side it with a small fee. Incense sticks are used for prayers and blessing. It is said that the smoke from the incense can cure illness so you can see some people rub it on themselves. We did not purchase the incense but we did made some prayer in the main hall and made a small donation to the temple.

We ended our short trip to Sensōji and continue with more photos taking session in the temple and around Asakusa. I was gaining a lot of attention from other tourist that day as I was the only person wearing kimono in the temple. Some of them even ask to take pictures with me which I happily agreed to. I think most tourist thought I am Japanese due to my height and my Asian face. Most talked to me in English and was surprised that I could speak their language. Growing up in Malaysia allows us to be exposed to many languages. I spoke Mandarin, Cantonese, Thai, Indon and of course English that day which was really fun and memorable.  

One funny incidence happened there was that there were 3 Japanese women talking Japanese to me but I couldn’t understand anything. After telling them that I don’t understand Japanese, they asked me where am I from in English which I answered “Malaysia”. Then they continued talking more Japanese to me. In between their sentence I heard “kawaii” which means cute so I thank them by saying “arigato”. Other than that, I could only stand there and smile non-stop while they are talking. But I was really happy because Japanese themselves approve my look. HAHAHA

One of the tourist activities to do in Asakusa is to have a short tour on the back of the man-powered rickshaw cart called Jinrikisya. These rides are available in front of Sensōji and there are people giving out flyers promoting it. However, we did not take the ride as it is really expensive. 

We were supposed to take a train to Tokyo Skytree as it is just one station away from Asakusa. But I was too cold in the kimono and not really interested with the building, so we decided to change our plan and head to Ueno for Ameyoko instead.

Winter is Strawberry season in Japan. Price of strawberries in Japan can range from about ¥300 to over ¥6000 yen for the premiums ones. We bought a pack of Nagasaki strawberry for ¥399 and it was the best strawberry we ever had. It was really juicy and sweet without any acidity! Now I’ve lost interests to any strawberries available back in here Malaysia. 

Here’s to many years more of adventures with you J