Monday, September 29, 2008

Trip To Asakusa and Ryogoku

Early Saturday morning, September 27, we headed out to Asakusa to see Tokyo's busiest shrines.  At the subway station, where we got off, we ran into a sumo wrestler that we asked for permission to pose with.
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  We stopped by the Bandai building where posed with a few anime characters.  
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We reached Senso-ji, home of Tokyo's oldest temple (wiki link).  To get there we had to walk through a long row of shops where we bought souvenirs and exoticc foods as we went.   This is Nakamise-Dori.
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The Senso-ji is another big buddhist temple with a humongous lantern.
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  Going up to the shrine, I decided to try my fate in fortune sticks.  I shook a metal box and out came a stick.  I matched the etchings to the appropriate drawer and took a piece of paper from it.  According to my fortune, "Best Fortune" which is the 2nd best to get.
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  The ideal one is "Good Luck" because it means its just getting better.  Unfortunately for me, It will be all downhill afterwards.  Off to the side of the temple was a taiko drum performance.  It was pretty cool.
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Afterwards, we headed down to the Sumida River and took a boat ride to Ryogoku where there is a Sumo Wrestling Arena.  We ran into a few Sumo Wrestlers.  They were quite big but seem to be very humble people.  
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There were so many people there but we didn't attempt to buy tickets on that day.  

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