Travel: Sensō-ji

Sensō-ji is an ancient Buddhist temple in Tokyo, the Asakusa neighbourhood. It was founded in 645 AD, so just under 1400 years ago. The main hall was rebuilt in the 1950s after it was destroyed during WWII. The temple is very active and a culturally rich place to visit. If you’re in Tokyo, the check it out. It’s peaceful and has a way of slowing down you thoughts. Okay, let’s check out some photos of the temple.

Sensō-ji

We visited first thing in the morning – left the hotel around 7am and got to the temple shortly after 8am. I’ve heard it gets incredibly busy later on in the day.

One thing that was special about visiting in the morning was watching the many locals visit for prayer and washing in between their busy lives. The temple has more than 30 million visitors a year and is the Worlds Most Visited Sacred site. Wild!

You can see above that we visited so early in the morning that the shops weren’t even opened yet. It was nice to experience the temple without the massive amount of tourists – things did pick up on our way out, though.

If you’re not familiar with Buddhism, then you might not know about O-mikuji – it’s a random fortune on thin strips of paper, you get one by making a small offering (100 yen at Sensō-ji) and then randomly choosing a box.

The photo below shows the ceiling of the veranda before the main hall, where the O-mikuji are on the wall in little boxes.

The grounds are also incredibly well kept – the landscaping is like something I haven’t ever seen before outside of Japan.

Thanks for checking out the post on Tokyo’s Sensō-ji Buddhist temple. Hopefully you get to visit one day.

Happy travelling! See you again soon.