Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
5
ASAKUSA, KING OF FESTIVALS
Taking place annually on the third weekend in May, and centred on Asakusa, the
Sanja Matsuri
is Tokyo's biggest festival, attracting up to 2 million spectators. The climax comes on the second
day, when over one hundred
mikoshi
(portable shrines) are paraded through the seething
crowds, among them the three
mikoshi
of Asakusa-jinja, each weighing around 1000kg and
carried by at least seventy men.
There are numerous festivals here throughout the year, including the Samba Carnival at the
end of August. East of the Amuse Museum, alongside narrow
Sumida-kōen
(
۱ాެԂ
) park,
the river provides the stage for one of the city's great summer firework displays (
hanabi taikai
),
held on the last Saturday in July.
temple itself, since the little Kannon - said to be just 7.5cm tall - is a
hibutsu
or
hidden image, considered too holy to be put on view. The hall, however, is full of life,
with the rattle of coins being tossed into a huge wooden coffer, the swirling plumes of
incense smoke and the constant bustle of people coming to pray, buy charms and
fortune papers or to attend a service. Three times a day at 6.30am, 10am and 2pm
drums echo through the hall into the courtyard as priests chant sutras beneath the
altar's gilded canopy.
Asakusa-jinja
ઙਆࣾ
•
W
asakusajinja.jp
Like many Buddhist temples, Sensō-ji accommodates Shinto shrines in its grounds,
the most important being
Asakusa-jinja
, dedicated to the two fishermen brothers
who netted the Kannon image, and their overlord. The shrine was founded in the
mid-seventeenth century by Tokugawa Iemitsu and the original building still survives,
though it's hard to tell under all the restored paintwork. More popularly known as
Sanja-sama, “Shrine of the Three Guardians”, this is the focus of the tumultuous
Sanja Matsuri
(see box, p.71).
Niten-mon
Sensō-ji's eastern entrance is guarded by the attractively aged
Niten-mon
. Originally
built in 1618, this gate is all that remains of a shrine honouring Tokugawa Ieyasu,
which was relocated to Ueno in 1651 after a series of fires. Niten-mon has since been
rededicated and now houses two seventeenth-century Buddhist guardians of the south
and east.
Amuse Museum
2-34-3 Asakusa, Taitō-ku • Tues-Sun 10am-6pm; café daily 10am-7pm; Bar Six daily 6pm-2am • ¥1000 •
T
03 5806 1181,
W
amusemuseum.com • Asakusa station
Just outside the east gate of Sensō-ji is the
Amuse Museum
, a six-storey complex
incorporating a café, shop and bar, bridging the gap between old and new with a few
quirky exhibition spaces dedicated to Japan's cultural past. It's mostly filled by a
rotating showcase of items from private collector Tanaka Chuzaburo's more than
30,000 items, displayed in a stylish and appealing manner - the permanent collection
of traditional patched clothing (
boro
) looks more like the interior of a trendy boutique.
The building's rooftop terrace offers amazing views of Sensō-ji and the Tokyo Skytree.
West of Sensō-ji
When kabuki and
bunraku
were banished from central Edo in the 1840s, they settled
in the area known as
Rokku
(“Block 6”), between Sensō-ji and today's Kokusai-dōri.
Over the next century almost every fad and fashion in Japanese popular entertainment
