Saturday, May 22, 2010

Sensoji Temple

We had the pleasure of visiting Tokyo's oldest temple, the Sensoji Temple in Asakusa. The day we went there the Sanja Matsuri was happening which happens to be one of Tokyo's biggest festivals! During this event many miniature replicated shrines are carried on Mikoshi throughout the city by a large group of locals. We got to see 4 small temples and all three large Mikoshis. After that we made our way through the marketplace selling souvenirs and yummy food (as pictured of course, lol). It was packed with people and when the Mikoshi came by we had to hold Aidan and Mia up so they wouldn't get trampled. This was the day my personal bubble popped and was deflated. After we made through the sea of people we finally got to actually go inside of the temple- it was beautiful. Josh and Brandon even were given sealed fortunes, both proclaiming a bright and successful future. We have seen some other temples and while we see Japanese going inside we didn't feel it was appropriate for us to go in them just to look around but since this was a big public celebration we felt it was ok. It was an amazing experience and we feel so lucky to have been able to take part in it.


























After our long day at the festival we had a transportation mishap. We got totally turned around on the subway then decided to take the bus, only to get lost on there. We did eventually make our way back to a familiar place after becoming so frustrated and breaking down and paying for a taxi to take us back to the train station :)

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