The meal at Tsukiji Fish Market gave us incredible energy! I'm not kidding, it was like Popeye eating a can of spinach! We took the subway north to Asakusa, a neighborhood of Tokyo with edo-era style. The Senso-ji temple is located there, popularly known as Asakusa Kannon, Tokyo's most sacred and spectacular temple. I knew that a special festival, the Sanja-Matsuri would be going on that weekend and I hoped we could catch a glimpse of it. Our luck was amazing - we ended up right in the middle of it! The aim of the Matsuri festival is to preserve the goodwill of the deities. It consists of purifications, offerings, and a procession in which the deity is invoked at the shrine and carried in a portable shrine to a temporary dwelling and then returned to the original location. The portable shrine isn't really that portable though. Its a huge gilded and ornately decorated piece which looks extremely heavy, hoisted up by wooden planks upon the shoulders of about 20 people who chant and raise the shrine up and down vigorously as they march through the crowds of thousands that have gathered in the streets. We got to be right in the middle of those crowds as about a dozen shrines were carried by us out of the Kaminarimon Gate at the entrance to the Temple grounds. After watching the ceremony for a while, we made our way out of the crowds to wander down the streets toward the Main Hall where worshipers were paying their respects by lighting candles and throwing coins. There were food stalls set up on every street selling all sorts of tasty treats like stir fry noodles, fried things on a stick and ice cream.
