Asakusa is fairly well known to travelers heading to Tokyo — if it doesn’t come up in your research, I’d be surprised. Locals also recommend this as a stopping place, largely because its market spreads across several streets in the Asakusa area in the north of Tokyo.
Easily accessible, it’s a place you can get to via subway and be suddenly transferred from modern urban Tokyo to the more traditional classic cultural side of the city’s culture. While the Sensoji Temple and Nezu Jinja Shrine is nearby and another major draw for people heading to Asakusa for the day, the Asakusa Market has enough eye candy to keep even the most prolific type A personality engaged for hours.
You’ll notice immediately upon exploring Asakusa is its feeling of ‘traditional’ and ‘old’, especially when you take a meander through the countless side streets off the main shopping drag. Here, you’ll not discover Japanese homes, which are hundreds of years old, but also deteriorating shacks and rusty steel buildings.
The Taikokan Drum Museum is also nearby which is worth stopping at if only to see their 6.5 feet tall drum that will run you around $60,000. In addition to drums, they have a variety of other native percussion instruments, hand cymbals and cymbals that look like sauce pans as well as a wide selection of ceremonial dress and Japanese flutes.
Join me on a visual journey through the Asakusa Market and surrounding area, well worth a stop.
Getting There & Details:
By subway, take the JR Yamanote Line to Ueno, transfer to Ginza Line, and then get off at Asakusa Station.
For more posts on Japan, see our Japan section and on Tokyo, visit our Tokyo Japan / top things to do in Tokyo section.
Renee Blodgett is the founder of We Blog the World. The site combines the magic of an online culture and travel magazine with a global blog network and has contributors from every continent in the world. Having lived in 10 countries and explored nearly 80, she is an avid traveler, and a lover, observer and participant in cultural diversity.
She is also the CEO and founder of Magic Sauce Media, a new media services consultancy focused on viral marketing, social media, branding, events and PR. For over 20 years, she has helped companies from 12 countries get traction in the market. Known for her global and organic approach to product and corporate launches, Renee practices what she pitches and as an active user of social media, she helps clients navigate digital waters from around the world. Renee has been blogging for over 16 years and regularly writes on her personal blog Down the Avenue, Huffington Post, BlogHer, We Blog the World and other sites. She was ranked #12 Social Media Influencer by Forbes Magazine and is listed as a new media influencer and game changer on various sites and books on the new media revolution. In 2013, she was listed as the 6th most influential woman in social media by Forbes Magazine on a Top 20 List.
Her passion for art, storytelling and photography led to the launch of Magic Sauce Photography, which is a visual extension of her writing, the result of which has led to producing six photo books: Galapagos Islands, London, South Africa, Rome, Urbanization and Ecuador.
Renee is also the co-founder of Traveling Geeks, an initiative that brings entrepreneurs, thought leaders, bloggers, creators, curators and influencers to other countries to share and learn from peers, governments, corporations, and the general public in order to educate, share, evaluate, and promote innovative technologies.
