Asakusa and Akihabara

 

Entrance to the Sensoji Temple at Asakusa

February 17, 2026

It was a cold morning in Tokyo today. It wasn't even 40 degrees, so we bundled up and headed first thing to Asakusa to see the Sensoji Temple. Sensoji is the oldest Buddhist temple in Tokyo. The legend of the origins of the temple is that in 628, two brothers went fishing in the Sumida River. A small image of Kannon got caught in their nets. They tried to return it to the river, but it continued to come back in their nets. Recognizing the significance of it, the village chief enshrined the statue and it became the earliest iteration of the temple.

It was a very busy place, and we heard lots of Mandarin. The pagoda is the second tallest pagoda in Japan at 173 feet. The top floor houses ashes of the Buddha. It also holds statues of Kannon.

There were lots of images of Kannon on the temple grounds.

This is probably our third visit to this temple and every time we have come it has been so crowded!

After the temple, we stumbled upon our first Pachinko parlor for this trip. It is still a national obsession, where reportedly, one in every ten people in Japan play. Players play the machines and win small silver balls that they exchange for simple prizes. They take the prizes to a separate kiosk where they can exchange them for money. Somehow the process bypasses the anti-gambling laws. And Pachinko in Japan make four times more profit than all the world's casinos combined!

It was incredibly noisy inside and the people playing looked very unfazed by the noise and uninterested in the game.

We were going to have sukiyaki for lunch but the restaurant had a 90-minute wait. So, we opted for a quick lunch of tempura. 

After lunch we went in a five-story Don Quijote store, locally called "Donki." It was as chaotic as the Pachinko parlor. It felt like a five-story treasure hunt in a very crowded store with the crazy earworm "Miracle Shopping" tune playing nonstop. They sell everything: cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, trinkets, groceries, luggage, electronics, snacks and souvenirs. You name it, you can probably find it.

Akihabara

Since we had not had our fill of shopping yet, we took the subway over to Akihabara. This area is known as Japan's "Electric Town". It is a hub for anime, manga and electronics. The first time Karl came here in the 1980's, he said it was all kinds of gadgets. We went in a multi-story electronic store that felt like a Best Buy on steroids. 

We walked through some five-story arcade centers filled with teens playing all sorts of video games.

We walked through some the Capsule Toy Hall and Lauren tried one out. They had claw machines and capsule machines. And then we suddenly decided we had had a sensory overload, and it was time to go home.