Asakusa’s door shutters

Posted on December 9, 2016 by Ginger

In Japan, as in many places around the world, shop owners secure their shops with roll-down metal shutters when they go home at night. In the morning, they roll the shutters up, bring out whatever signs or wares they place on the street near their door, and open for business.

In Asakusa, many of these metal shutters are painted with wonderful pictures–so full of Japanese life and vitality. Sometimes the picture gives a clue to what kind of shop is sleeping behind it; and sometimes not–though the writing probably takes care of that function in many cases. Here are some shutters that we saw as we walked the streets in the morning, when the shops were just starting to open.

Here’s a particularly detailed and complicated one:

I’ve saved my favorite for last–that trompe-l’oeil fabric over the entry just makes me smile!

The streets of Asakusa

Posted on November 19, 2016 by Ginger

As a “shitamachi” (or low city) district of Tokyo, Asakusa has numerous charming pedestrian streets. For example, this is the street leading to the Sensoji shrine. It is lined with shops selling wares to tourists and to devotees.

The entry to this street is emphasized by a fine gate.

There are streets with a covered arcades — interesting both by day and by night.

And, of course, there are just plain pleasant pedestrian streets!

Lining the streets, whether pedestrian or not, are, of course, buildings. Some of these buildings are heart-meltingly attractive.

Others, not so much–though these, too, sometimes have a certain charm.

One feature of even the most ordinary buildings is a certain tendency to decoration–wonderful, very Japanese decoration.

A dragon!

Samurai!

Finally, we found one especially fortuitous combination of all these things–pedestrian street, building, and decoration.

Asakusa — the temple area

Posted on October 31, 2016 by Ginger

We didn’t discover the interesting area around the temple until the second time we went there, and had more time to wander.

There were, to begin with, several statues of Buddha (or perhaps of Bodhisattvas).

A short digression is perhaps in order here. Dan and I are illiterate in Japanese, and we have gained a whole new–and sympathetic–understanding of the dilemmas that must face functionally illiterate people in our own country. We were certainly able to get around fine in Japan. Most public transportation have signs in English as well as Japanese; and people were also wonderfully friendly and willing to help. We also understood where we were and what we were seeing, at least in broad terms. But the details on explanatory signs (and most menus!) were too much for us. So I present here the beauty, or cuteness, of what we saw–and the Japanese are very, very good at both beauty and cuteness–but no details. Just as we experienced it.

And now on to the Buddhas. Or Bodhisattvas.

Finally, my favorite. I actually don’t know who this little guy is, or anything about him. I just know: you gotta love him!

There was a small but lovely landscaped area, with a stream running through it.

The stream had myriads of red-and-white fish in it.

And the fish were hungry.

There were also numerous other objects of mystery.

One small shrine I do know about (because they were kind enough to post its story in English as well as Japanese). Once upon a time, it seems, in the early eighteenth century, a housewife, digging in her garden, discovered buried there a jar full of gold coins. She worried that she and her husband would rely too heavily on those coins and become lazy and lose what they had. So she buried the coins again, and with this mindset, she and her husband worked hard and became very wealthy. They placed a statue of the Bodhisattva Jizo on the spot where they buried the coins. Today, this shrine is built over those coins.

It contains the statue of the Bodhisattva (and several other statues of him, too). People come here to pray for success in their business enterprises.

Asakusa — the Sensoji Temple

Posted on October 30, 2016 by Ginger

Asakusa is considered an important “shitamachi” (that’s “low city” to you!) district of Tokyo. It does have its few high-rise and modern buildings, but many older streets and structures survive.

But more of that later.

First, an important lesson in pronouncing Japanese. This will be helpful to anyone (well, any American English speaker, anyway) contemplating a trip to Japan. An American acquaintance of mine who spent a lot of time in Japan explained Japanese pronunciation this way: “They speak really fast and run all their syllables together.” I did not find this to be true, though I did find myself nearly choking on my tongue when trying to repeat the names of places the way they were announced in trains and subways.

Those of you who, like me, speak American English as a native language probably imagine that the name of this district would be pronounced “AH-suh-KOO-sah.” But this would be terribly wrong. The closest I was able to get is “Ah-SOCK-sah.” (I think the “u” is just there to space out the “k” and the “s” a little.) In general, I found I could get closer to correct by placing a strong emphasis on the second syllable rather than the first and third. Thus, for example, “Ka-NAH-z-wah” is better than “KA-na-ZA-wah.” Just so you know.

We visited Asakusa twice–once early in our trip, late in the morning; and then again on our very last day, when we spent an evening there and then got an early start in the morning. The early start turns out to be important, as the district can be crowded with tourists.

The biggest tourist draw in Asakusa is the Buddhist Sensoji Temple. This temple is the oldest in Tokyo–originally built when Asakusa was just a fishing village in the seventh century–occupies a complex of numerous buildings, artifacts, and landscape features. The temple building and its ancillary structures are remarkable. I loved the large lanterns in the doorways.

The roof tiles of the main hall, rebuilt in its original style after its destruction in World War II, are made of titanium.

I like this statue and the dragons on his fountain:

Also, there are a number of lions.

Decorative details include warriors and imaginative beasts.

More on other parts of the temple area in the next post.

The Bridges of Tokyo

Posted on September 24, 2016 by Ginger

We rode the water bus from the Asakusa district of Tokyo down the Sumida River to the Hama Rikyu garden. In the process, we passed under maybe thirteen bridges, all different colors and styles. I found the texture of the bridges against the backdrop of Tokyo’s buildings as pleasing as the scenery.

But first, here’s the view from Asakusa terminal, first, looking directly across the river, and then looking down the river, where the boat will soon go.