Searching Asakusa for Drums and...Plastic Food?

Today we decided to stay close to the hotel and spend our time checking out Asakusa, an area known for it's enormous, ancient Sensouji Temple (built 648AD) food service shopping district (more on that in a minute) and, most recently, the Sky Tree (aka the New Tokyo Tower), the tallest structure in Japan, though it is not set to open until next month.

After a very brief コンビニ (convenience store) breakfast, we walked outside to Sensouji, quite convenient, as it is directly behind our hotel. The last two times we were here, Sensouji was undergoing restoration, so we weren't even able to catch a glimpse of the main gate, Kaminarimon. But this morning was cold, but bright and cheerful...and crowded!

All the gold trim literally gleams in the sunlight

...LOTS of sunlight

Newly restored gilded lanterns. They are about 12 feet tall.

A view looking down the bustling Nakamise (inner store), which is the ancient market road that leads up to the temple.

 Nakamise has all sorts of stall and shops, making food and snacks right in front of you. We bought some amazing mochi (rice flour) sweets and fresh senbei (sesame rice crackers) to enhance our pizza bread from 7-11 (breakfast of champions!), then had to escape the crowd. We walked a short way down the main busy street in Asakusa towards Orange Street, which is an old road filled with vintage shops, cafes, restaurants and what have you.

Sign reads "Orange Douri(Street)"

A prime example of "what have you". Magurobito translates, literally, to Tuna People.

We continued towards the train station in search of something Sumi had wanted to see for years, the Taiko Drum Museum. It is not a museum like you would expect. First of all, it's on the fourth floor of a Shinto Goods and Taiko store. Second, the entrance looks like this:

Hm. The store itself was pretty fascinating, with all sorts of things needed for Shinto ceremonies, processions and such. And some very elaborate, very pretty and very expensive handmade taiko drums.

taiko drum sticks in all sizes

Did you ever wonder where Japanese parade floats came from? Me, too!

This one sells for just over $24,000

The museum was very small, but very cool for three reasons.

1) they had drums from all over the world on display
2) Even though pictures were not allowed in the museum, the nice curator offered to take a mug shot of us with one of the more impressive displays

The best I could make out, these are Chinese festival drums representing a dragon and the sun.

3) You actually got to PLAY almost all of the drums! They had sticks out and everything. And we're not talking about a few little snare drums. Big, five foot deep taiko drums, water drums from Papau New Guinea, kalimbas from Africa. We were so nervous about it, we only hit them softly. It was so quiet in there, we felt rather odd banging on big drums, but it was VERY cool.

A little ways down the road from the drum museum is a shopping district that specializes in food service. Japan has all sorts of "shopping districts", which are really just clusters of shops specializing in the needs of a certain profession. For example, Tsukiji has the Fish Market and tons of little sushi shops and goods needed to cook and prepare fish. Here in Asakusa, this is where one goes if one owns a restaurant and needs things for it. Shops for signs, display cases, to-go boxes, dishes, foodstuffs (spices, canned and dried goods, etc). Anything you need for a restaurant, you can buy it on these two blocks.

Plates, bowls, serving dishes...

To-go containers and uniforms...

Many stores were simply little warehouses you could browse. I could barely squeeze down some of these aisles.

Lucky Turtle? The mascot for a knife shop...Kacchan.

Who said tacky was out of style?

And, of course, if you are a Japanese restaurant, you need to buy.....plastic food

I always wondered where they came from!

They even have the bizarre pizza with clams on it...

They are called "Sample Shops", and many restaurants in Japan use these plastic foods to show prospective diners what they serve. There were several grades of "samples", including some rather expensive handmade ones that looks very realistic. You normally aren't allowed to take pictures of goods in shops, so I had to be rather sneaky about these. The guy at the expensive shop kept staring at the big Gaijin, so I couldn't get any pics. sorry.

Apparently, you can also outfit your own brewery from this street

or mad scientist lab, I'm not sure...

Now starving after having stared at fake food for the last hour, we headed back towards the temple area, where we wanted to try out Sansada, a tempura restaurant that has been here in Asakusa since the 1850's. It had obviously been remodeled since then, but still had an old fashioned feel to it. The food?

The smile says it all!

Actually, it's funny because the tempura really was good, but there was one piece that all but ruined the meal for us. The mushrooms, spinach and especially onions were very tasty, but there was this flower they put in there, battered and deep fried and larger than the vegetables. I still don't know if I liked it or not, but the flavor was SO strong, that it literally overpowered the meal. If you've ever eaten flowers before (which is not unusual in Asian cuisine), you know that they taste like a smell, if that makes sense. This tasted like distilled essence of a flower. Gum, toothpaste, chocolate and soda could not remove the taste from my mouth even hours later.

One thing we noticed while wandering Asakusa is that the Sky Tree really has started to dominate the skyline. When we were last in Asakusa, it wasn't anywhere near completed, so we never saw it. But now, it's a landmark that can be seen clearly from all around, which is saying something in a city full of tall buildings. With the old Toyko Tower damaged from the tsunami-inducing earthquake back in the spring, the Sky Tree promises to be the new kitschy tourist spot as well as a nice way to figure out which way is east when you are in the city.

Several miles away, it is still impressive

Next up: Meiji Temple and Harajuku!