Japan 2012: Temple, Shrines, and F-F-Fangirlin' (09/10/12)
Warning: 53 Images, swearin', fangirlin', ramblin'
It was a shame Nur and I had stayed in Ueno every time we had been in Japan together, but never been to Sensoji Temple even though it was so close! It was time to fix that. I suppose Sensoji Temple is redundant, since it's actually "Senso-ji," where "ji" is temple (I think), but I'm going to call it Sensoji Temple for the time being.
Hey look! Sky Tree! We're probably a half mile or more away from it, and it's already HUGE. To the left, you can just see the tip of the "Golden Turd" building. I thought it looked pretty neat until I read about people calling it that and now I can't think of it any other way. =\
I love this. So much. Too bad we left before it started.
Sky Tree again! (Every time I read or say "Sky Tree," I hear it in Haru's voice from Tsuritama.) I like the building on the right.
Oh! We're just about there. I rather like the Fuujin(?) ad under the Asahi ad.
Kaminarimon (Thunder Gate?) ! That lantern is pretty big, you can see the family underneath it to compare the size. Raijin is the statue on this side of it, Fuujin is on the other.
Why is there a net around it?
This is the bottom of the lantern.
The space between Kaminarimon and the next gate, Hozomon, is filled with all these little shops. I could see if they were for like… charms and maybe food and stuff, but they were mostly random chintzy crap. It was weird.
For example, here's a store that sold all sorts of dog and cat stuff? I guess you COULD buy a shirt for your dog that said "Senso" here, so it sorta works for temple goods, but still! What the hell is this??? I was both disappointed in the seeming stupidity of the shops, but it was sort of fun to see at the same time. XD;;
Hozomon (Treasure House Gate)! Whereas the Kaminarimon lantern says "Kaminarimon," this one says "Kobunachou," the name of the town.
One of the black lanterns on that flank the big red lantern.
There's no net around this one… But the bottom of it has a dragon carving too!
The main hall of the temple!
Buddha sandals? There were two of these on the back of Hozomon.
A- are these humans or monkeys? I don't know.
Five-story pagoda.
Temples are cool, but I am ALL FOR the shrines. This is Asakusa shrine! The current building is from 1649, though I'm pretty sure the walls have been repainted fairly recently. If not… daaaaamn I want some of that paint.
Hello, you handsome beast!
Oh, and who is your friend over here? Lovely to meet you~!
More koma-inu! This shrine had at least four, how nice!
The partner of the previous koma-inu.
The paintings on the walls are so cool… Kirin and a dragon-bird-kite-thing! …but I'm totally in love with the koma-inu-esque carving there, it's so expressive!
The paintings go along the edge too. So cool!
The torii for Asakusa Shrine and to the right, Nitenmon (Two-Heaven Gate?). But LOOK! At the cone! HERE! AMUSE MUSEUM!!!! I should have gone. Cones are very amusing. Honestly though, I wonder what sorta stuff there have there.
Benten-do Temple, enshrining Benzai-ten, the goddess of fortune. She has some fierce koma-inu!
"Rawr! No good fortune for you, stupid girl!"
This is THE BELL OF TIME. I wanted to ring it. OHHHHH MAAAAAN I WANTED TO RING IT.
This poor little guardian didn't have its partner. I felt so bad for it!
Well, I guess we should walk back to-
OH MY GOSH, A PLAYGROUND!!
This playground was not made for adults. =(
This was a cool building.
We walked back to the hotel, but stopped at a Book-Off on the way. =D Then we dropped refreshed ourselves in the room and headed to… Odaiba!!
Click to viewOn the monoraaaaaail, I love me the monoraaaaaail~!
The mini Statue of Liberty, Rainbow Bridge behind that, and Tokyo Tower behind that! …Plus a Starbucks on the right, haha. We were here because we had failed, absolutely FAILED to go to the noitaminA store in Shibuya. But we were in luck… There was another one here!!
Can you feel the glory? THE ABSOLUTE GLORY?
HOW ABOUT NOW? 'Cause I sure can. I wanted that sign so badly. *_*
Unfortunately, they no longer had the Duck Curry display (from Tsuritama) up anymore, but there was a pretty cool Robotics Note one up instead.
I still need to watch this show.
Tsuritama… SOMETHING-OR-OTHER!!
Tsuritama… purikura! You can bet your ass I did this. Nur and I had trouble figuring out the directions though so our pictures weren't… the best, lol. It was still fun. We got one Tsuritama one and a Moyashimon one. =D
We were just about to leave, but… They were still selling white bait curry, and I… I NEEDED IT, OKAY? And you got a Tsuritama coaster with it!! I wanted any of them except Haru. (No offense Haru, I like you just fine, but I had been doing the Tsuritama gashapon in the store and 3 of the 5 things I got were Haru things. =T
HUZZAH! I didn't get the Haru coaster! I got Ayumi instead! I am VERY happy with that, I don't have enough Ayumi in my life.
Yes, I kept the toothpick.
The box it came in, if you were uh… curious, I guess?
All my money spent (I was seriously down to like ¥150 in cash, thank goodness my Suica card was already charged up so I could get back to Ueno!), we jumped back onto the Yurikamome Monorail to make our way home. Time to take pictures of EVERYTHING! Hey look, it's the Fuji TV building! I know this place from Digimon season 1!!
It's a building with an egg-shaped thing on the top!
It's a boat!
Nur says, "What are you doing? Stop that, you're being silly."
"No!!" I said. And then I took another picture.
The Lion King was playing here! There were fliers that said something like 5000 shows, which seems pretty crazy, so I probably read them wrong.
We went back to the hotel, dropped off our stuff, I got more cash, and we headed back to… yup, back to Akiba.
It's a… MEERKAT? WHAAAAAAT???
Nur and I split up and I bought more manga I shouldn't have and picked up more doujin, even though I told myself I wouldn't. I was also able to buy every Astro Switch (from Kamen Rider Fourze) I was missing except for one, the Cosmic Switch.
Lotsa manga! At the bottom is all the stuff I got from the noitaminA store. I was REALLY tempted to get some more, but I just couldn't justify spending ¥3000 on a 1- or 2-color shirt. The Un-Go thing on the left is a cell phone holder. I use it for my iPod. It clips into a belt loop and the iPod goes in the pouch, which is closed with a strong magnet. The other side is a picture of Inga. I seriously use it all the time, it I'm outside, 95% of the time, I have it with me. I looooove it. Next to it is a Tsuritama tote bag which it still in its packaging (WHAT IF I GET IT DIRTY????), then an AWESOME lantern. The keychains are all from the gashapon machines at the noitaminA store. Three Harus arghhh variety pleaaaase. At least the Haru I got a double of has a different picture on the back, so side by side they look different, lol.
One of the Tsuritama Radio CDs (the first one, I think? I don't have it handy to check) and the single for the ending.
Doujin and Astro Switches!! That big book is the last of the big Heat Guy J books I needed. The doujin are all Summer Wars or Haruhi. That bag next to them is from spending over ¥2000 at Toranoana. At this point, I was determined to get all the Toranoana bags. (We did end up getting them all!) There are some Gundam things for others, and then THE MANGET SWITCHES! They make phone sounds. =D
But wait. What is that in the middle? Could it be…?
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH THIS IS A GRAIL AHHHHH IT'S A KYON x KYON DOUJIN OH MY GOD. Not only that, IT'S A FREAKING ANTHOLOGY! AND IT WAS ONLY ¥210!!! I bought A LOT of really great doujin, but this might just be the best. I've wanted Kyon x Kyon so badly, but only in my sweetest dreams did I think I'd ever find any. Even now I get really giddy thinking about how happy this doujin makes me!!
Next time, on Annaliese's Occasional Trip Posts: TOKYO DISNEYSEA!