Tokyo Podcast, Part Two: Asakusa

Welcome back to the hotelbook.com podcast. This our second podcast on Tokyo. Last time we explored the lively Shibuya district and in this episode we’re going to take a look at an area called Asakusa. Asakusa has some great cultural sites. There is the Sensoji Temple, the Five Storey Pagoda, and the traditional market of Nakamise. The area is quite complicated, so grab yourself a map from the Asakusa Tourist Center which is right near the train station.

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As you approach Sensoji temple, you will first purify your body, moving through clouds of incense. Then you can visit the fortune-telling stand. To discover what the future has planned for you, you must shake a metal cylinder until a wooden stick falls out. Then show the stick to an official who will give you a slip of paper that coincides with that stick. The slip will reveal your fortune. But don’t worry, if there’s bad news you can tie the slip of paper to the branch of a nearby tree, and the bad fortune will simply blow away.

Close by is the Five Storey Pagoda, standing tall at just over 50 meters and just like all other pagodas in Japan, it has a giant Japanese Cyprus tree-trunk running through the centre. This location gives you a great opportunity to take some excellent photos. A pagoda must have some meaning, and indeed this one does; it stands to honour comedians, so if you enjoyed some good comedy on your inflight entertainment to Japan, you can honour the authors here.

On the left side of the temple, you’ll find the Hanayashiki Amusement Park. This area used to be Yoshiwara, the licensed pleasure quarter of the city of Edo, which was replaced by Tokyo. In 1923 the area was destroyed by fire but officially caused by an earthquake. However, many suggest that it was an arson attack made by jealous and angry women. In the 1930s foreign films brought the area back to life. Since the 1950s and ’60s the area evolved once more. Pachinko parlours and game centres moved in. Pachinko is an unusual game that should be played by all visitors at least once. Essentially the game involves firing ball bearings, pinball-style, and hoping to land them in cups to score points. The principal difference is that the balls are fired rapidly by machine. The player has control over the rate and velocity, so therefore has some aim. You can buy a tray of balls to play. With skill you’ll win back more balls than you purchased, which you can then sell back. However, you can’t sell them back directly as this would require a gambling licence from the authorities. So you can exchange them for an item of arbitrary value that you take to another window around the corner and exchange for cash. A cunning workaround that has kept many entertained for hours!

We’d like to suggest a pair of hotels for your visit to Tokyo. The first is one of the most distinguished hotels in the world - the Hotel Okura.

The Hotel Okura is a five-star hotel located in the Minato-Ku area, in the heart of Tokyo. It is an ideal hotel for those travelling for pleasure and business. The Okura provides everything that you would expect from a five-star hotel. Outstanding service, excellent rooms loaded with facilities, a gym, pool, spa facilities, and for business travellers, of course a business centre. With the central location of this hotel, you have the whole of Tokyo available to explore.

The second hotel is the Palace Hotel Tachikawa. This three-star property is located a little further from the city centre. It is adjacent to the Jindai Botanical Garden, and provides many convenient facilities to meet the needs of travellers. The Jindai Botanical Garden is particularly spectacular. Wander among the 30 areas of the garden, featuring 100,000 trees and shrubs, which account for around 4,500 species. And right next to this special space is the second oldest temple in Tokyo, the Jindaji Temple. The Palace Hotel Tachikawa is another great example of an unusual independent hotel that you find on hotelbook.com.

Thank you for joining us today. For more information and links to these hotels, visit the hotelbook blog at blog.hotelbook.com.

Comments

[podcasting]

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[scott]

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