Tourism

Last weekend, as I'd been to Yasukuni shrine earlier in the week, I decided to make a visit to Asakusa, which is a district in Tokyo that also houses a rather large Shinto shrine. I don't particularly subscribe to any forms of religion or spiritualism, so this visit was purely for sightseeing, which I soon learnt is the same case for many other people who visit the area.

As soon as I had arrived, I quickly realised that Asakusa seems to have the largest number of foreigners that I've seen in any one part of Tokyo so far. I had noticed a fair few in Shibuya on my previous visits, but nowhere near the amount in Asakusa. It almost encouraged me to try and speak Japanese more, to try and not be considered yet another tourist. I doubt it really worked, though.

I think the main point of attraction in Asakusa is the sheer size of the buildings and gates, most of which I struggled to contain in one photograph, which almost serves as a reminder to start properly looking for a new camera. But it's also worth mentioning that it's doing very well as a tourist trap, with the vast majority of items for sale in it's market area being little trinkets with the name quite clearly marked. This also extended to food and drink, as I ended up paying 700円 for a cup of tea and a small slice of cake in a little cafe, which would have been 500円 for the tea alone if I hadn't bought them as a set. Despite those little gripes though, it was a great place to go. I may be making a return visit for little gifts, as it wasn't expensive to get there.

Aside from that, it has been business as usual really. I'm going to be attending a baseball game between Rikkyou and Hosei at the weekend, so that should hopefully be interesting, as I've only been to a baseball game once before in the States, which somehow didn't seem to be of great interest to the people attending it.