Asakusa and Sumida River

On Tuesday I went to Asakusa, home to Tokyo's famous Senso-ji Temple (浅草寺). It's an extremely popular tourist destination because it's Tokyo's oldest Buddhist temple. And it's huge.

To get to the temple you have to walk through one gate, down a pathway lined with souvenir shops, and through another gate. Here are some shots of the first gate.

We took our time walking down the path of shops, checking out the souvenirs and the little food stands. Mainly the food.

Here's a view down a side street.

Here's a peek into one of the souvenir shops. Excuse the blurry old man ruining the picture.

We went into one shop that had masks hanging all over the walls. I think these traditional masks are really cool and I'm planning to buy one at one point, but on Tuesday I decided to hold out a little longer. Some of the masks are really expensive and some are around the $20 mark. These wooden ones are beautifully carved but they're all well over $100.

Uh oh. I couldn't pass up the chance to try "purple potato" flavored ice cream. It basically tasted like sweet potato, which was surprisingly delicious.

Here's a really nice tree with a Buddhist garden in the background.

This is a view of the second gate and a nearby pagoda (the building with multiple roofs/stories).

Finally, here is the temple itself.

And the inside.

And the surrounding area.

After we were done at the temple we went to a delicious okonomiyaki restaurant called Sometaro for dinner, and then we walked over to the edge of the Sumida River. It's really nice and lit up at night, and we had a great view of the Tokyo Sky Tree. That will have to be a trip for another day.

There were some people doing hanami nearby the river so I creeped on them.