Our guide this morning was Momoko, and she was taking us on a classic tour of Tokyo. We headed down to the Metro station and travelled to the end of the orange line to visit the Sensoji temple, the oldest in Tokyo.
Legend has it that in 628, two brothers fished a statue of Kannon, goddess of mercy, out of the Sumida river. Even though they threw it back into the water, the statue kept coming back to them. In the end, they decided to build the statue a temple, which has been added to over the years making it rather grand today. Trade sprang up too, so the space between the first two gates, about 200 metres long, is now a series of tacky souvenir and food stalls.
The location is unusual in that it also contains the Asakusa Shinto shrine, along with it’s guardian dogs.
After a coffee stop, we went to see Sumida river. The most interesting thing about the river is the HQ of Asahi, one of Japan’s biggest beer manufacturers. The building was built to resemble a glass of beer with a head on it. Our guide didn’t know what the yellow parsnip was about, so we googled it. The lower black building is the Asahi beer hall and the parsnip is supposed to represent the burning heart of Asahi. The flame is often referred to locally as the golden turd and the beer hall as poo building!
We then returned to the subway and took a train to Tokyo station to visit the Imperial Palace. During the Shogunate, the Emperor used to live in Kyoto, which was the capital. The Shogun lived in the palace in Edo. When imperial rule was restored in 1868, the Emperor moved into the Shogun’s palace and Edo was renamed Tokyo and became the capital. And that’s about as much as we know about the place. It is quite a walk from the station and you can’t get anywhere near the palace itself.
We didn’t see the outside of Tokyo station when we first arrived, so Momoko took us back a different way. The station building was one of the first brick built buildings, due to the fact that it was built after Japan opened up to the west and bought steam locomotives from the UK. With all the sparks flying, it was considered too dangerous to build a wooden station! The front entrance is only ever used by members of the royal family, lesser mortals have to use a different entrance.
Our tour ended here, so we said goodbye to Momoko and went looking for noodles.
After that, we had to do some more navigating of the Metro. Having been right to the end of the orange line, we now had to go almost to the start to find a Taiko drumming school. We were booked onto a private Taiko experience.
Our teacher was Ikkei, and he started by showing how to hold the sticks and bang the drum. After that, we learned three basic sequences and eventually put them all together. He then dimmed the lights and got one of his colleagues to video us going through the complete sequence as a performance. It was exhilarating, but also very hard work.
Ikkei then gave us a private performance playing five drums, which left him totally bathed in sweat. And he does this for a living!
Not knowing how long we’d be out, we made a reservation at the Chinese restaurant in the hotel this evening. I’m not sure how authentic it was, but it was very different from an English Chinese meal. Once we got it over to the waiter that we didn’t want squid, abalone, whelks, sea urchin or swallow’s nest, we had a very nice meal. But each course came separately, which makes for a very long meal.
Steve and Diane on Tour 