Sensō-ji Temple & Tokyo National Museum

On February 1st Anne and I explored a couple more of Tokyo’s tourist locations. Our first stop was the Sensō-ji Temple located in the Asakusa area. It is Tokyo's oldest temple, and one of its most significant. The temple is dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon, also known as Guan Yin or the Goddess of Mercy. It was built in 645AD and it looks like there have been a number of renovations since then. There is a long road that leads up to the temple called the Nakamise-dōri (dōri means steet in Japanese, by the way). This street is packed full of people and shops. The shops sell everything from Godzilla toys, sweets, purses, swords, miscellaneous decor, and souvenirs. After navigating though a sea of people I purchased some grilled tako (octopus) and Anne had some hand made red bean desserts.

Our next stop was to the Tokyo National Museum. The museum is located inside Ueno Park. Unlike the traditional idea of housing all of the exhibits in one building this museum thought it would be more fun to house them in 5 buildings. The facilities consist of the Honkan (Japanese Gallery), Tōyōkan (Asian Gallery), Hyōkeikan (Western-style architecture), Heiseikan (Japanese Archaeology Gallery), Hōryū-ji Hōmotsukan (the Gallery of Hōryū-ji Treasures), as well as Shiryōkan (the Research and Information Center). I think the primary reason for this was to make us think there was more there then in the previous museums we had been to. What we have come to discover is that after awhile all Asian museums (Shanghai’s, Taipei’s, and now Tokyo’s) start to seem the same. Sorry folks, no camera’s were allowed inside so you have to settle for pictures of the buildings.