Another full day of exploring Tokyo. David had booked a guided walking tour of the Asakusa area, and we got to the meeting point in good time on the metro.
It seems it rains as much in Japan as it does on Shogun, but today the outlook was for warm sunshine all day. Our guide was a tiny elderly Japanese lady. There was just the four of us and a young American girl. We started with a brief detour to look across the river at the Tokyo Sky Tower and the Asahi building, meant to look like a glass of beer with a foamy head on top. Next to this was a building with what looks like a giant golden sperm on the roof. In fact it’s to do with a previous Tokyo Olympics and is meant to symbolize a flame. Unfortunately safety constraints meant it had to be laid sideways rather than pointing up.
From there we walked to the tourist office and took the elevator up to where we got a bird’s eye view of the area, and our guide also gave us a quick rundown on religion in Japan. There are two main religions, Buddhism and Shinto, and generally they coexist peacefully even in the same house. Their God is not a jealous god, obvs.
We then crossed the road and entered the gates to join the thronging crowds along the Asakusa.
There is a trail several hundreds of metres long, with a Shinto temple and a Buddhist shrine side by side at one end, and lined with shops selling tourist tat of varying quality. Lots of people wear traditional outfits which can be hired.
You could also hire a rickshaw if walking around seems like too much work.
Our guide encouraged us to join her in making a prayer at both houses of worship. The procedure was subtly different at each site but both involved donating a small coin for good luck.
After saying goodbye to our guide, we went to Ueno park where we found many people picnicking under the cherry blossoms, and also this man taking his meerkat for a walk.
We then decided we were hungry so set off to find a vegan restaurant Simon had found on Google maps. Our meal there was fabulous in spite of our being jammed into tiny seats to eat it.
We then split up, with me deciding Takeshita street sounded far too good to miss and Simon decided it was less trouble to follow me than head off by himself. The street was everything it was made out to be – weird shops, animal cafes of all sorts, and every kind of sweet junk food you could imagine. It was packed and exhausting to wade through. We were both pleased to take the train back to our hotel for a wee lie down.
Dinner was at a place recommended by the hotel, a sushi bar high up one of the local towers. The raw fish was a bit too exotic for my taste but the views were amazing.
