On tuesday I decided to go to Senso-ji temple. Its probably the major temple in the inner Tokyo area. It was founded in the seventh century for a tiny gold statue that some fishermen caught in a net. I got off at the nearest railway station, though I didn't know it, I would have to walk a half an hour to the temple. Along the way I ogled the American groceries in an import food store. I was helped by a man waiting for the crosswalk, as I looked very confused with my map open, searching in vain for a street sign. He asked "May i help you?". Even in Tokyo the people are so polite. I made it to the temple. There were lots of people around. Some Nepalese guy who conveniently lost his friends tried to make me his temple-seeing buddy. i conveniently lost him in the crowd.
There is a long, long market in front of the temple. Its got people selling everything. People are selling religious items, souvenirs, food, clothes, green tea ice cream, freshly grilled rice crackers, postcards, and random crap. I bought some postcards for my postcard collection and some green tea ice cream to cope with the ridiculous heat. i passed on the random crap though. The temple was very nice. Nothign really out of the ordinary as far as Japanese temples go, except for it being a temple in the middle of a crazy metropolis. As you looked at the pagoda there were the tops of rides from nearby fun park in your view. There was a little Japanese garden with a koi stream out back. There were tiny little shrines mixed in the garden. Shrines to what?, I have no idea.
After seeing most of the temple I wandered around some nearby streets that were supposed to be reminiscent of "old tokyo". There were some traditional sorts of shops, but by some sheer luck there was a real part of old tokyo. Three young (still in the sumo schooling process) sumos were out walking around. Two were dressed in traditional yukatas and have the traditional sumo hairstyle. The third one was a little too cool for school and was just wearing modern clothes. Since, of course, it would be unfeasible to see a sumo wrestler for more than 30 seconds and not see them eating, they stopped and bought ice cream. They walked along eating there ice cream and adding it to their not-yet-admirable girth. The too cool for school one dropped his one the ground. because of the unspoken 30 second eating rule, they all went back to the ice cream stand and got him another one. He needed all the fattening up opportunities he could muster.
After Senso-ji, I headed back to the elusive kite museum. This time I had all the free time I needed and a knowledge of where this place actually was. The kite museum was actually one of my favorite things that I saw in Tokyo. It was very small- just a floor in a narrow building. It was perhaps twice the size of my apartment. In it though, were a bazillion kites. There were all kinds of kites. There were small kites, big kites, old kites, traditional kites, kites shaped like birds, insects, squids, ships, and painted like all sorts of things. The things painted on the kites could have been actual paintings. They were very elaborate and beautiful. I think that it is mostly one guy, or a very small kite association that is mostly organized by one guy, who collects all of these kites. I really love it when people pick something obscure, like kites, to be ridiculously passionate about. I thought it was awesome that that guy devoted himself to kites for whatever reason. Its so pointless and romantic. The kites were awesome though. The place was packed with them. On the way out the lady gave me an origami jumping frog.
I finished off the day at Rikugi-en garden. I figured I should pepper my trip with some visits to green, quiet spaces, so as not to get too overwhelmed by city. Rikugi-en is, what my guidebook calls, a classical Edo-period stroll garden. i don't know precisely what it means, but the garden was originally from the 1690s-1700s. Not a lot of the original garden survives, but enough did. Its still a big garden by today's standards. There was lots of tightly trimmed grass with fenced off paths. In the middle was a big lake with some islands in it. Most exciting was a little stone bridge with clustering turtles. When you walked over the bridge, the turtles in the water beneath came swimming over to the spot underneath where you were. I guess people must feed them. Either that or those turtles really like the look of tourists gawking back at them
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