Kaminarimon Gate, Market, & Oeshiki Festival

chillilila
Oct 12, 2016
1 min read

Kaminarimon Gate (浅草寺雷門) & Asakusa Nakamise (浅草仲見世 ) first with Chris, Christine, Matt, & Kayla. The market is amazing; so full on. We bought lots of bits & bobs, but most of it was spent admiring everything on sale. We had ice cream - I tried pumpkin - then at the end of the market we came across Sensoji Temple, where Kayla & I took part in the cleansing rituals of waving incense over ourselves & washing our hands in the fountain. Sensoji Temple is beautiful, if some what busy. There were lots of people wearing kimono's, & praying in the temple, which was lovely to witness. Kayla & I tried some traditional sweet bread before we headed on a long train journey to to a festival Christine wanted to go to, called Oeshiki Festival, which is a Buddhist festival commemorating the anniversary of Saint Nichiren's death. It took a while to get to Ikegami Honmon-ji (池上本門寺) where the festival was being held, & we spent a while trying to find where the parade started, only to watch it for about half an hour because it turned out to very repetitive; it was just groups of people banging drums, some chanting, some carrying lanterns, some dancing with big sticks, & a very few carrying 'mando'. We ate at a place called 'Jonathans Coffee & Restaurant', which sounded like it could be mainly western, but it wasn't really. It's been a very long day!