Day 2 in Tokyo, if there was a day I was going to fit as much in as I could, it was today. I was so busy with work before leaving for this trip that leading up to the trip I had done very little prep. I knew what I wanted to see, and had a rough list, but not much of a game plan.
One of the main things that has too be seen to be truly apprecited (pictures just don’t capture it) is the Senso-ji Temple and the Arakusa Shrine.
Sensō-ji Temple and Arakusa Shrine
A calm Sunday morning, the roads were quiet and the city seemed rather tranquil. How perfect to see these shrines and temples. Taking the subway to Arakusa Station, I managed to get there early, almost before the bulk of any crowd, it doesn’t take long before the smell of incense hits you and you’re left in awe of the height of these towers.
Worth Seeing: 5 Incense sticks out of 5. There’s lots to see in Tokyo, but if there’s anything you see in Tokyo, make it this.
Getting There: North of Arakusa Station.
After about an hour of walking around, I’d felt I’d seen what I came to see and decided to head out. Just then I’d noticed a tall guy, with a beard…who looked just like a buddy of mine from University. It turned out it was him and another friend of ours and his girlfriend were right behind him. We had both realized we were heading too Japan at the same time through facebook posts as we were both respectively leaving, and even tried to meet up the night before, but due to my inability to figure out how the rail and subway systems worked on the fly, we didn’t connect. The fact that we ran into each other, in the most literal sense of the saying, the very next day was unreal. So we combined our forces like Voltron, and headed off to check out Tokyo.
Wandering around some more, we stumbled upon a small shrine and some tori gates, amongst the rest of tokyo by trees and a large pond and garden on either side.
After that, it was food time, a quick round of the best damn Raymen I’ve ever had in my life, we headed out to check out the Meiji Shrine located on the other side of downtown.