{asakusa sensor temple}

As we were planning out our last day our we decided our priority was to see the Asakusa Sensor Temple and started on our venture to the other side of Tokyo. Having been living in Korea, I’d seen my fair share of palaces and temples over the past six months so I thought I knew what to expect. While visiting palaces has been one of my favorite aspects of living abroad, the Japanese temples really are completely different from the Korean palaces and temples. For one the color scheme is much warmer. Korean palaces have a cooler scheme made up of mostly greens and blues. The Asakusa Temple, however, was mostly red and black and looked much more like what you would imagine a temple in Asia to look like. Something about it just seemed more sacred, though I couldn’t quite pinpoint why.

I was excited and surprised to see a long market pathway leading us to the temple. I love a good market {!!}. It was mostly touristy items and souviners along with a few snack shops thrown in. We stopped occasionally to look at various items, but our main stop was the temple. We arrived at the temple later in the afternoon and were so lucky to be seeing it right at dusk. The lights began to turn on right as we were arriving and it really was magical.

One of the coolest aspects I felt was the small area they had to get your fortune. Which I was especially excited to see as it was the start of the Chinese New Year. They had instructions set out in English and the process began. We followed the directions, shaking a metal box until a stick came out. Then we had to match the Japanese characters from the sick to a little box in the wall. When you find the box, open the drawer, retrieve your fortune, and replace the stick in the metal box. It was exciting to see your fortune right at the start of the new year as what was to come for the year and life in general. And, I’m happy to report none of the four of us received a “bad” fortune, in which case we would have had to fold it and tie it to a stand near the temple.

It was a fun experience and having a little wisdom for the future never hurts.  With this visit to the temple, we ended our time in Tokyo. It was such an incredible weekend and so fun to be in a new city. I’m definitely looking forward to another trip at some point while living in Asia.