14/7 Claire - Asakusa district

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Originally uploaded by blenkers

We are staying in the Asakusa district of Tokyo so we mooched about in this area during the afternoon when we arrived. There was a large Buddhist temple called Senso temple close by surrounded by market stalls selling everything from sweets to Japanese fans to souvenirs. There was some great stuff but also some stalls that looked great to the untrained eye but on closer inspection tourist tat is tourist tat. It’s no surprise to find that a lot of stuff you can buy in Japan is very kitsch. I’d love to bring some of it back but we have to travel light and are close to our luggage limit already. I have considered boxing up our gifts and purchases and posting them home, although I wonder if Japanese kitsch is only funny and endearing if you’ve actually been to Japan.

Outside the temple there was lots of incense burning, people were buying sticks of incense in tube about the size of a dynamite stick and burning these in a large ornate burner outside the temple. Then, the smoke from the burner was wafted across and onto the person’s head whilst a prayer was said. There was also another custom which seemed to be going on at every turn. Imagine an old fashioned wooden pharmacy drawer set of around the 1900’s. There were people shaking wooden boxes full of what looked, from a distance, like chop sticks. They made a hell of a noise but this shaking of the box was obviously important, like you would shake a set of dice before throwing them, as the stick that you eventually released from this box was numbered or linked somehow to the mini drawers. Inside the drawer was a piece of paper, now what this included we have no idea but Ian is sure this was somehow linked to fortunes or prayer and, in the last part of this ritual, tied to a metal frame near the main temple. I have no clue but will look into what was going on there… its either something deeply spiritual or akin to the lottery!