Asakusa – Tokyo, Japan
There is just so much to do in Tokyo, it can be overwhelming. The world’s largest city (pop. 37.5 million) is also incredibly safe (people don’t even lock their bikes) and surprisingly easy to get around via the Metro system, which can take you everywhere (provided you can figure it out):
Our first hotel was in the Shinjuku neighborhood, so we decided to spend our first day touring Asakusa – a popular neighborhood across town.
Just take the Marunouchi Line to the Ginza Line and you’re there.
There are free walking tours available for the neighborhood – we didn’t join, but put all of the highlights into Google Maps and went at our own pace:
Armed with our Google Maps screenshots, we were on our way!
Kaminari-Mon – “The Thunder Gate”
Just outside the Asakusa metro station we ran into our first destination – the “Thunder Gate.” This is ther meeting place for most tours of the neighborhood, and is a great place to get started. The gate itself is huge (almost 40 feet tall!) and spans the entire road. It is decorated with large lanterns and statues – naturally tourists flock to this landmark.
Nakamise-Dori
Passing through the Thunder Gate, we continued our journey straight into Nakamise-Dori, one of Tokyo’s oldest shopping streets dating back to the 17th century. This street is jam packed with stalls selling souvenirs and artworks of all kinds – not to mention the crowds.
Wandering up and down the street, we made a few stops grabbing some strawberry dango:
Followed by some matcha flavored ice cream (and beer!):
We also found a store selling “vintage American” clothing – including an Ohio State sweatshirt. Note to self: bring all our old college clothes to sell on the next visit to Japan.
Sensō-Ji
Our next stop was the Sensō-ji Temple complex, the “centerpiece” of Asakusa neighborhood. With original construction dating back to 645 AD this is Tokyo’s oldest temple, and with 30+ million visitors annually it is considered the most-visited religious site in the world. We spent some time exploring Sensō-ji and its surroundings, which contain several more temples and shinto shrines.
After touring the temple, we made our way back through Nakamise-Dori. Instead of browsing souvenirs, however, this time we were in search of another Japanese tourist favorite: Sushi on a Train. With a little luck, we found just what we were after!
We luckily arrived just-in-time to avoid the restaurant’s “break” period from 3:30-5:00PM, and sat down. If you’re unfamiliar, the way a Sushi-Train restaurant works is this: guests sit at benches around a large interior kitchen, in which sushi chefs are constantly preparing dishes. Once complete, food is placed on a conveyor belt like this:
Guests are free to take sushi from the belt at their leisure. You can also yell “sumimasen” to get the chef’s attention and order something specific, or order drinks from wait staff in the restaurant:
Sushi is served on color-coded plates, indicating how much each item costs. Once you finish eating, the staff will count up your total by looking at your “stack” of plates before you pay at the register. For reference, this bill was about $35USD:
Everything was delicious!
Tokyo Skytree
A short walk away from the “main” portion of Asakusa is the Tokyo Skytree, the 3rd tallest sturcture in the world at 634 meters (2,080 ft). Needless to say, it is quite impressive:
Unfortunately the tickets to go up to the tower’s observation deck were a bit outside our backpackers’ budget (especially considering there is a free observatory across town in Shinjuku), but we did explore inside the “Skytree village” which contained both a brewery and a store selling all kinds of cartoon/video game/anime merchandise:
At this point the sun had gone down (and we’d walked over 20,000 steps), so it was time to head back to our hotel. We had one last adventure, stopping at a local bar for dumplings just outside our place. We had to use google translate to understand the menu (and the staff), but ultimately got what we wanted:
Overall, a fantastic first day in Tokyo!
