Asakusa and the famous Senso-ji Shrine

On the last day of our downtown stay, we decided to take my mom to the great neighborhood of Asakusa, home of the famous Senso-ji Shrine, an important Buddhist temple. We always pass this cute UK inspired telephone booth near the train station.

These two are pretty comfortable with train travel these days.

This is the Kaminarimon (thunder gate) outside of the shrine. This is very famous, you will probably see it pictured anytime a movie is set in Tokyo.

This is the shrine itself.

There is always an incense cauldron out front.

Also, a hand washing area.

This is the altar at the temple entrance for praying, there are also big grates to put money in.

This is the Senso-ji Pagoda, with its beautiful vibrant colors.

Quite a few monks were on the grounds, dressed in orange robes.

Not sure if you can tell from the picture, but there are many shopping bags just left on the side of this building. Crime is so low in Japan that it is quite common to see people’s purchases left unattended, whether to save their table at a food court or to shop hands free. I hope they don’t try this elsewhere!

We finally found a way to get a natural smile out of Ella. Ask her about her friend Stanley!

We enjoyed wandering the grounds of the shrine. Everything is always so beautifully manicured.

And there is always a koi pond!

These lovely ladies were happy to pose with the girls.

Ahhh, I just love this!

There are a lot of cool side streets near this shrine to explore, which is how we spent the next few hours.

This is Tokyo Skytree in the distance. We had really weird weather too, you can see the sky was sunny on one side and dark and cloudy on the other.

We passed a photo shoot for a wedding magazine, which was pretty fun to watch! (But, why do magazines always portray a bored bride? What is wrong with a beautiful smile?!)

There are lots of rickshaws in the area. We will have to do that sometime.

The awesome Asakusa skyline. I really love this place!