Sensoji Temple

Jason's best friend from the time he was 4 years old came for a visit last month.  Dave was here for 10 days.  It was great to see him.  While he was here there was a lot of touring and such, one little trip took us to Asakusa to visit the Sensoji Temple.  Here is what one website said about the temple:

"The legend says that in the year 628, two brothers fished a statue of Kannon, the goddess of mercy, out of the Sumida River, and even though they put the statue back into the river, it always returned to them. Consequently, Sensoji was built nearby for the goddess of Kannon. The temple was completed in 645, making it Tokyo's oldest temple." -Japan-guide.com


Sounds good right?  It was amazing, but so busy!  We could barely walk there were so many people.  None of the pictures that I have to share can even begin to allude to the massive size of the temple or the masses of people there.  But, here is what I have anyway.  Enjoy!

This is the entrance to the temple.  Beyond this gate is a street of shopping called Nakamise.  This street has vendor after vendor selling lots of traditional Japanese goods and foods.  The side streets that branch off from Nakamise are like a maze of little malls and alleys full of more of the same.  I think that one could spend days there and still not see everything.




 One of the things Dave wanted to do while in Japan was have traditional Ramen.  We found a ramen shop there and enjoyed it very much.  I love how you can see the steam rising from the soup in the picture below.



Outside temples there are large incense burners.  Visitors can buy a bundle of incense and put them in the burner.  As the smoke rises, the visitor fans the smoke over themselves.  The smoke is supposed to have healing power.






Next, we went to the temple.  As you walk into a temple there are big boxes to toss coins into as you say a prayer.  Once inside there are more of the same boxes, as well as candles you can light, I am assuming in the name of prayer.  (I really wish I knew more, but I've never visited a temple with someone that could explain it all to me.)  There is a room to pray in, which I have no photos of as they are not allowed, but it is really quiet beautiful.
 The boys outside the pagoda.  The pagoda is a tall building that is built near the main hall or temple.  The pagoda is usually 3 or 5 stories high and sometimes houses the remains of the buddha - something like a tooth.
The Pagoda




The pics above are of Jason and Lily drawing Omikuji.  This is a fortune or divination about a person's near future.  Your Omikuji can offer an excellent fortune, a disastrous one, or anything in between. Fortunately we were all pretty lucky!















This is the entrance to the temple.  Huge lantern.


 

Some beautiful statues outside the temple (above) and (below) a pic of what a vendor had to offer.  It's hard to see but inside the class are all kinds of fresh seafood.  That's it - Sensoji Temple, the oldest temple in Tokyo.  Kind of amazing when you think about how these buildings were built so long ago, with no help from all the modern conveniences we have today.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Back to Seattle

In January we saw our local endocrinologist for the first time.  He was lacking in eloquence and was quick to condemn the process that we had taken to get to him, however, he assured us that he was going to get Lily to a good place.  Since seeing him she has been on a consistent does of thyroid meds in hopes of regulating her body and beginning to feel better.  Unfortunately, she's not feeling better.  Her symptoms are exactly the same.  Dr. W ran two sets of tests.  The first included and ANA test which measures whether or not autoantibodies are present. This is the 2nd time this test has been run and for the second time, it is positive.  By itself this does not diagnose anything, but it indicates that further testing is needed.  You can read more about it here .  In any case, his suggestion is that we go back to Seattle Children's.  We have an appointment for a full rheumatology and endocrinology workup on April 25. The second set of tests should be back tomorrow.  He was t
Read more

Surgery

I started my period when I was 11 years old.  I remember going to the nurses office at school that day because my lower back hurt so badly.  It felt like nothing I had ever felt before, but was a feeling I would become quite familiar with.  Imagine there being a bowling ball inside your body, resting on your tail bone.  It causes pressure just sitting there.  That was a good day.  The bad days were when that bowling ball was being ground into my back - from the inside trying to find a way out.  Later, when laboring with Lily, that same feeling was there.  Lily was upside down and her head was resting on my tailbone.  The contractions that drove it deeper into the bone were killers.  So all those years of imagining my inner bowling ball were not that far off! In those first few years of cycling I would often seek out the hardest surface I could find and just lay on it, trying to flatten my back into it.  Our living room floor usually did the trick - a cement floor with a thin layer of
Read more

Parenting is not for the Timid - This is my Biggest and Worst

Parenting brings obstacles and challenges like none that we've ever dealt with before.  My first was when my son was born.  He was the most difficult baby I'd ever come across, and I got to be with him all the time .  I remember how defeated and discouraged I was, and how I thought to myself, "I can't do this.  I can't parent this child, make him happy, stay sane.  I don't even want to".  I didn't know how I was going to get through his infancy and this obstacle felt like the greatest obstacle of my life. We got through it, I got through it.  Time passed and allowed me to forget the depth of the struggle so that when the next challenge arose, that one felt like a new biggest and worst.  The new challenge was now the thing that was going to end all civilized thought in my head.  Again, we got through.  Time and again, challenges, the biggest and worst, have arisen.  Each time I have thought, "How? What am I supposed to do with this?  Help!  Pleas
Read more