LITMIR.BIZ

      Shirakawa-go, Japan Alps

1 Senso-ji Temple, Tokyo

      A journey to the heart of Old Tokyo’s Asakusa district

      Senso-ji Temple in Asakusa splits opinion. For some it’s a tourist trap, for others it’s the highlight of a visit to Tokyo. In truth, it can be both. The colorful Nakamise-dori, the shop-lined street that forms the main approach to Senso-ji, is as touristy as it gets in Tokyo with its plastic samurai swords, trinkets and slow-moving horde of tourists. The rest of the Senso-ji Temple complex is simply magnificent.

      According to legend, there has been a temple here since the 620s, when two brothers snagged a golden image of Kannon, the goddess of mercy, in their nets while fishing in the nearby Sumida River. Awestruck by the tiny statue, they were inspired to build a temple in which to enshrine it, and Senso-ji was born. As Senso-ji’s power grew over the centuries with the support first of the Kamakura imperial court and later of the Tokugawa shogunate, so too Asakusa grew around it, expanding from an insignificant fishing village to a thriving merchant town and then the city’s premier entertainment district in the prewar years (page 29). Throughout, Senso-ji has always remained at Asakusa’s heart and it’s not hard to see why.

      Senso-ji greets visitors with the great Kaminari-mon (Thunder Gate), a roofed gate standing almost 12 meters (39 feet) high and 12 meters wide under which hangs a 1,500-pound (680-kilogram) red paper lantern that itself measures some 4 meters (12 feet) in height. Protected on either side by the menacing bronze statues of Raijin and Fujin (the gods of thunder and wind), Kaminari-mon is the first of several imposing structures in the complex. At the other end of Nakamisedori, the two-story Hozomon Gate stands 22 meters (72 feet) high and is decorated with three giant lanterns and two 800-pound (362-kilogram) straw sandals. Used to store many of Senso-ji’s most precious relics, it is guarded by two identical 5-meter (16-foot)-tall statues of Nio, the guardian deity of the Buddha–two statues that make Raijin and Fujin look positively friendly. Beyond that, in air heavy with pungent incense, comes a five-tiered pagoda and the larger, albeit less ornate main building, in front of which visitors pray and wave incense smoke over themselves for its supposed curative powers.