Asakusa, Tokyo, Japan, Part II

Here is the second of three posts of my picture collection from Asakusa, Tokyo, Japan.  These pictures here are still from the grounds of Sensō-ji temple.

This five-story pagoda was built in 942!

Unfortunately, with no guide and no informational plaques, I had no ideas what I was taking pictures of.

These are ema  絵馬.  Wishes are written on these wooden plaques and left in hopes of fulfillment.  Many of the wishes are usually for good health.  I know in Korea, a lot of the older Buddhists would pray for their children and grandchildren to get good grades in school.
Beneath the ema are omijuki.  They are fortune telling strips.  They can be purchased at the shrine and, at this temple, are tied to a metal rack.  If the fortune tells of coming bad luck, the hope is that the bad luck will wait by the rack instead of coming to the fortune receiver.  And if you tie a good luck fortune to the line, the idea is that by waiting on the line, the good luck will become more potent.

An information booth that was closed for the day

I know this one!  (Thank you, internet.)  This is a torii (鳥居).  They are used to mark an entrance to a sacred place.

 

Holy water from the fountain is used for purification.  Worshipers will wash their mouths out with the water.

Another torii
The rope across the lower beam is called shimenawa.  It uses braided rice straw rope and those zig-zag pieces of paper called shide.  They are used for blessing, purification, and to ward off evil spirits.

The main hall of the temple

Another fountain of purifying water
This one is almost directly in front of the temple's main hall.  The water comes out of dragon statues.  Dragons are cool.

And that is my tour of the Sensō-ji temple.  I learned everything I typed about it just now with help from the internet.
I really want to go back to this place, to any place in Japan really, and go with someone who knows what we're looking at.  I missed out on so many things, and while I loved taking in the beautiful sights, I wish I could have learned along the way.

My insecurities

Heads Up

This post comes from someone in the alienation phase of reverse culture shock (also known as the irritability and hostility phase).  The thoughts and emotions expressed here seem more dramatic than usual, but this transition makes life more dramatic than usual.  Also, my heart has been hurt.  For some reason, I've decided to write about it.

Is security with yourself something you're born with and is then taken away or is it something you have to learn and be taught?

You know, I have friends younger than me and older than me who aren't afraid of what people think of them.  They are so confident being themselves.  They are beautiful, vibrant, and interesting.  I like to think most people are beautiful, vibrant, and interesting, but these people I know are so unapologetically bold, that they stand out in just the right way.

I wish I were like them.

I with I didn't care about being popular and about everybody liking me.

Be true to yourself.  Don't worry about what other people think.  Their approval isn't important.

SO WHY DO I WANT THEIR ACCEPTANCE??!!

My feelings get hurt when I'm not included.

I worry about being weird when I get a strange response from something I said.

 I imagine I'm friendless when I discover I haven't been invited to that thing everyone else is going to.

I feel foolish when I realize I am embarrassingly inappropriately dressed for a night out at a bar.  (I didn't know what people wore for those kinds of evenings.)

So I'll try to remember the things my brave, secure friends said or what they would say.

Why would I want to be close friends with those people anyway?  Their lifestyle isn't the one I always want for myself.

One of the reasons you weren't invited was because you were usually with a different group of friends, right?  And you really enjoyed being with that group, didn't you?

You were made to be you, you have been given a personalized collage of God's own personality, you were made for Him, and you were not made for others.

Actually, I really just want a hug and for someone to tell me I'm okay.  I don't want to hear these words from me, I want to hear them from someone who loves me.  It's when these truths come from a voice that I trust that they mean something.  Right now, they're only half truths.

But, I bet I'm not alone.  I do know that much.  And I know I do have people who love me.

One day I will be in a place where I completely belong.

I've been yearning for that day and that place a little more than usual lately.
It gets better, I know, but I wish I were more resilient and that I arrived at these low places on a much rarer basis.  Is security something you can learn at 24?

Asakusa, Tokyo, Japan, Part I

I asked my contact at work to see if it were possible for me to have a long layover through Tokyo on my way back to America.  He managed to give me 30 hours in Japan!  With only a week before arriving and no plan, I asked my friend JiHyeon if she had any ideas about a good schedule for someone wanting to see the city of Tokyo and not just the airport area of Narita.  JiHyeon lived in Tokyo for a few years and was more than happy to give me a travel agent's 2-day guide to Tokyo.

I will post that guide in the following days, JiHyeon really did a great job, but for now I'm going to show you pictures of the only part of that schedule that I checked out.  I was thoroughly exhausted by the time I landed at Narita, Japan, and after dealing with a completely foreign language, subway system, and communication style, I was ready to just relax for a while when I got to my hostel (K's House; recommended) in Asakusa, Tokyo.

I slept like a rock after a night of chilling with a book and playing UNO with a group of traveling Australians.  The next morning, I felt up to walking down the street to visit the street shops and the Buddhist shrine and temple nearby, 浅草寺, Sensō-ji.

This is the view from the street.  Not bad, eh?
This is Kaminarimon, 雷門, the Thunder Gate.  The god of wind and the god of thunder are depicted in the right and left side of the gate, respectively.  On the opposite side of the gate are statues of the god Tenryū and Kinryū.

Small Update

You know how, as you get older, you start to learn more and more about yourself?  Over the past 6 months, I've learned that if I haven't been writing on my blog consistently, something's probably awry for me.  Take now, for example.  After 51 days in American with no job and no steady outlet for community investments, I have come very close to gloomy and lackadaisical about how I spend my time.

To help, I will start to write again.  I have thought that returning to the States and not having a job would keep me away from a lot of story fodder.  Well, I do still have leftovers from Korea and details about reverse culture shock to share.  And then, I've been doing a lot of reading and internet browsing since I've been at home, and there's a lot of neat things I've seen that I'd like to show you.

This is an effort to kick myself into a standing position again.

Let's do it.