Japan, Day 9 - Tokyo, Senso-ji Temple

For our last full day in Tokyo, we decided to do something spectacular and really dress the part for our morning sightseeing to the Senso-ji Temple. We had seen a lot of people do this while in Kyoto, and Misuzu had found us a place here in Tokyo where we could do it too.
Do what?? Dress up in kimonos!

So, you can pay to rent these kimonos at special places where they help you get dressed from the inside and all the way from head to toe. They do your hair and add any accessories you wish to use; sort you out with shoes and matching bags etc and then you are allowed to keep the outfit the whole day.

Once we were dressed up and ready and left the studio, our first stop was - Starbucks! Ha ha, I needed a quick coffee fix to strengthen me up before heading up to the temple and all the masses of tourists...

The Senso-ji Temple, also known as Asakusa Kannon, is Tokyo's most sacred and spectacular temple. Originally the first shrine was built here in 645, but while it survived the earthquake in the early 1900s it didn't survive the WWII bombings. The main buildings are therefor relatively new.

The site and the buildings are so impressive and here too they had a tall 5-storey pagoda:

Before we entered we had to go past the big incense burner and waft the holy smoke over us, to keep us healthy:

 Kids looking at the making of ningyo-yaki served up in the shape of the pagoda:

We only wore the kimonos until after lunch, then we got rather hot so we returned them back again. To be honest, we just wanted some nice photos in them, and we felt rather content after the photos we shot at the visit to the Senso-ji Temple. This photo below, was one of my favourites: