Japan 2023

February 12th, 2023

The flight was pleas­ant and free of prob­lems. On approach to Tokyo, the peak of Mount Fuji appeared above the cloud cover:

Around 10:00am CEST, so at 6: p.m. local time, we land­ed in Tokyo and after pass­ing through the usu­al for­mal­i­ties (cus­toms, Covid vac­ci­na­tion pass­port check) we were joy­ful­ly picked up by our daugh­ter at 7: p.m. in the Hane­da / Tokyo airport.

From the air­port we took the metro to our hotel, the MIMARU Tokyo Asakusa Sta­tion. We had to change trains sev­er­al times for this and were very grate­ful for the pro­fes­sion­al guid­ance and accom­pa­ni­ment by our daugh­ter Luise. The sub­way net­work in Tokyo is very large. In addi­tion to 13 sub­way lines, there are also numer­ous region­al trains. The region­al trains in Tokyo and the sur­round­ing area are paid for with chip cards that can be charged in vend­ing machines in the sta­tions. Our daugh­ter had already pur­chased two of these SUICA cards for us. You have to scan the cards each time you enter and leave the plat­form. Accord­ing to the dis­tance, the fare is then cal­cu­lat­ed and deb­it­ed from the card balance.

The MIMARUs are so-called apartho­tels, sim­i­lar to the ACCOR ADAGIO chain. The rooms are equipped as mini-apart­ments with a small kitchen. Our apart­ment was designed for a max­i­mum of 4 peo­ple (two sin­gle beds and a dou­ble bed) and very mod­ern. In Kyō­to we also rent­ed a MIMARU apart­ment. We can high­ly rec­om­mend both.

Around 8:30 p.m. local time, we final­ly arrived at our hotel room after a good 34-hour jour­ney and were reward­ed by a won­der­ful view of the Sum­i­da Riv­er and the Tokyo SkyTree:

By the way, the build­ing that obstruct­ed our free view of the SkyTree belongs to the ASAHI brew­ery. The gold­en some­thing on the out­build­ing is sup­posed to rep­re­sent beer foam.

Since it was already too late to go out for din­ner, we picked up some ben­to box­es from the kon­bi­ni locat­ed on the first floor of our hotel and enjoyed our first din­ner in Japan all togeth­er in our hotel room. Kon­bi­nis in Japan are small­er gro­cery stores that are usu­al­ly open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Thus refreshed, we took our first small excur­sion to Asakusa Shrine and Sen­sō-ji. Both were with­in walk­ing dis­tance of our hotel.

Asakusa Shrine (浅草神社, Asakusa-jin­ja) is a Shin­to shrine. It is also known as San­ja-sama (Shrine of the Three Gods) and is one of the most famous Shin­to shrines in the city. The shrine hon­ors the three men who found­ed the Sen­sō-ji. The Asakusa Shrine is part of a larg­er col­lec­tion of sacred build­ings in the area. It is locat­ed on the east side of Sen­sō-ji on a street marked by a large stone torii.

It is one of only two build­ings in the area which sur­vived World War II and has been clas­si­fied as an impor­tant cul­tur­al her­itage site due to its long history.

The Sen­sō-ji (浅草寺), or Asakusa-dera when the char­ac­ters are read dif­fer­ent­ly, is a Bud­dhist tem­ple. Its for­mal tem­ple name is Kin­ryūzan (金龍山). It is Tokyo’s old­est and most impor­tant tem­ple. The his­to­ry of the tem­ple goes back a long way. Accord­ing to leg­end, in 628 three fish­er­men found a 5-cm gold­en Kan­non stat­ue in their net, which was then wor­shipped. In 645, the priest Shōkai built a tem­ple on the present site.

The tem­ple burned down in 1642, then dur­ing the Kan­tō earth­quake and World War II, but has always been rebuilt, most recent­ly in 1958 using rein­forced concrete.

After the long jour­ney, the walk and over­whelmed by the first impres­sions from Tokyo, we fell into our beds com­plete­ly exhausted.