After Tokyo Tower, the next place I visited in Tokyo was Asakusa, and I was so impressed by it that it remained my favorite place in Tokyo. Stories and movies about geishas were one of my first encounters with Japanese culture, so that atmosphere of a traditional Japan that Asakusa, the oldest geisha district in Tokyo, has to offer, really fascinated me. There are still geishas working there from what I’ve heard and I happened to see two Japanese ladies dressed as oiran, but I guessed they were actresses.
The main attraction in Asakusa is the buddhist temple, Sensoji, built in the 7th century, making it Tokyo’s oldest temple. Before getting to it, there is a huge gate called Kaminarimon (Thunder Gate) and a street full of small stands of souvenirs, food, sweets, called Nakamise street. The atmosphere in Asakusa is that of a traditional Japanese festival, a vibrant and full of energy atmosphere that I love! It is an ideal place for trying a wide variety of Japanese traditional sweets, such as kinako dango (chewy dumplings made with rice flour and dusted with sweet soy flour), ningyo yaki (little cakes filled with red bean paste), green tea ice cream, melon pan (sweet vanilla flavoured pan) and many more. You can try tabe aruki, or eat while walking. Although not normally allowed to eat on the streets in Japan, such touristic places are an exception to the rule.
Next to Sensoji, you can spot Tokyo Sky Tree, with a height of over 600m is the highest tower in the world, and second highest building after Burj Khalifa in Dubai. And again there is this new vs old contrast between the hundreds of years old temple and the modern tower.
In Asakusa, I went for the first time to a cook-it-yourself restaurant and tried monjayaki, a batter with different ingredients such as seafood, pork/beef meat, vegetables and so on. The so called “Japanese pancake” interesting along with Okonomiyaki, but Monjayaki being the one popular in Kanto region and Okonomiyaki in Kansai. Eating while cooking was an interesting experience and a great way to get to know the ones around better!
