So day 1 is officially over. It began with pastries and a planning
session. We decided to go to Asakusa, the old district, to see the Senso
shrine. We were infinitely lucky, because not 30 mins after we saw the
shrine and read about the Sanja festival (3rd largest festival in
Tokyo), guess what began?! After further research, we have discovered
that it's a weekend festival that begins the 3rd Saturday in May :)
Today, we saw a parade-like procession of 100 or more small shrines,
each carried by upwards of 40 men and women, all chanting and bouncing
the shrines (apparently, bouncing makes the spirits that inhabit that
shrine more potent?). There were even mini-shrines carried by kids.
Adorable! The shrines were bounced up through the gate to the front of
the Senso temple for a blessing. They then were bounced to the
neighboring Asakusa shrine for a blessing, and the to whichever of the
44 neighborhoods in Asakusa they came from. After a while at the shrine
and surrounding market watching people bounce things, we walked to the
Tokyo Skytree where we didn't go up, but saw some pretty talented
buskers. After that, we came back to the hotel to drop off purchases,
and discovered that our feet hurt A Lot. According to Daniel's special
health-tracker bracelet, we had walked over 8 miles thus far. We hung
out at the hotel and watched a Yomiuri Giants game on tv (they're the
Yankees of Japan), then walked around the lakes in Ueno park to find
dinner. Tasty. In total, we walked 10.89 miles today. Tomorrow promises
to be busier (on the agenda: Meji gate, an 8 story bookstore, the
Harajuku district, and Imperial Gardens). Wish us luck!
Love,
Leah Murphy, foot-sore explorer
No comments:
Post a Comment