Senso-Ji Temple

Today we visited the Senso-ji Temple, the most sacred Buddhist temple first built in 645 A.D., (although it was destroyed during WWII and has since been rebuilt in the Edo style - these buildings are fairly new. The shrine is used by many locals. There are many statues of Buddha. In order to prepare to worship, the people wash their hands, and then take water from a fountain, swish it in their mouths and spit it out. This cleanses their spirits. They then go to a sacred incense burner and breath in the smoke, which is believed to keep them healthy. They give an offering of a 5 yen and pray. It was a very interesting place to visit. There are prayer sticks that reminds me a little bit of a fortune cookie. If you get a 'fortune' that is bad luck, you must tie it to a pole to get rid of the bad luck. I noticed that around the Buddha statues, people would wash themselves, then they would rub the statue with their wet hands, then their own bodies. Some japanese girls told me that they do this to help something that is ailing them get better.

We ate lunch here at a restaurant. The restaurant had Tatami mats for the flooring, so we all took our shoes off. Here's a picture of what our lunch looked like. It was really good.