Japan Trip 2016 Part 3 : Asakusa Temple (Senso-ji) and Seafood Lunch

Haiiiiii ^^!!!

Anyone excited for the next installment of my Japan trip? Here it is :D!!! It's day 2 and we're going to Asakusa Temple (Senjo-ji)!

Full team of Stella Lee's Kawaii Beauty Japan Tour, photo taken by Stella's mom :D!

As you've probably already know,  Asakusa Temple or Senso-ji is Tokyo's oldest temple and definitely one of the most famous tourist destination there. I think the place's always quite crowded, but it was doubly so when we visited because it happened to be Coming of Age day (seijin no hi)-that's both a blessing and a curse for us. A blessing because we got the chance to see lots and lots of young women wearing kimono (and even a few guys too) around (Stella taught us how to approach them and ask for photos, she basically told us "Kawaii neeee" will go a long way hahaha) and curse because... Well, it was so damn crowded!

Around Asakusa, you can find a lot of rickshaw to ride. Unlike in other countries where most rickshaw pullers are older men, Japanese rickshaw pullers are handsome young men! Seriously, those young men were probably some of the best looking guys i've seen in Japan WTF. There's one in this pic i discreetly took while pretending to snap pic of the surrounding, he was pulling a weird face but that's still better than no pic. I thought i snapped some pics of them, but i couldn't find them -____-, maybe it was super blurry that i had to delete them. Anyway, some of the group members actually went to ride them, but i'm not much of a rickshaw (or whatever ride. I even refused to rode a gondola in Venice) rider, especially after i saw the outrageous price list hahaha. I guess we're paying for the eye candy as well as their energy hahaha

There!!! The famous red lantern!!!

Of course, we gotta take 13954254 pics there hahaha

I don't have the biggest pair of eyes, but out of the four of us, my eyes are definitely the biggest HAHAHAHA (their eyes got even smaller here because they were fighting the glare of the sun). But you can't see them thanks to my bug-eye glasses :P

I dunno why i surround myself with such petite people, it makes me look even  bigger than i already am WTF (i need to constantly be around Sabsab, Shelley and Kiky, they make ME look petite HAHAHAHA). Silv is around... 13 cm shorter than me i think? I never paid attention to how short she is until i saw her standing next to not-even-160cm tall sister and realized that she's significantly shorter than CW hahaha

The street leading to the actual Temple is littered with souvenir and snack shops

Stella took us through a quieter alley, possibly to distract us so we wouldn't be tempted to make multiple stop buying interesting things *LOL*, we're going to get some free time after visiting the temple

This is the last candid pic hunny snapped of us (well, i was clearly aware of the cam) because he dropped his camera in Asakusa and the view finder stopped working FOL. He lugged his heavy Samsung NX300 all the way to Japan to use it exactly 23x in Asakusa WTF. It pains my heart because the quality of his camera is far superior than mine, and he's actually a much better landscape/unanimated object photographer than me. Case in point, all of the actual photos of the temple were taken by him (and a few by Silv and her even-heavier DSLR), i also took the same pics but they all turned out slanted WTF

Look at the view, this is when we truly felt that we're in Japan hahaha

Look at the number of people single-mindedly heading into the temple

Hunny took this pic. I love how he's into details when it comes to photography. He better  take good care of his camera in our next visit!!! I expect nice photos! Coz now the rest of the Japan trip posts rely on my crappy photos zzz

You see the smoke? Normally when i see smoke, i run away from it (i have hereditary respiratory problems, i stay clear from anything that can prompt an asthma attack!) 

But this time we actually head to the source (a large cauldron bearing hundreds of inscense) to wave the smoke to our faces and bodies because it's believed to bestow good health, etc

Good thing is that most of the visitors are Japanese because Japanese people queue up nicely and they don't shove (unless you're on their way in/out of the MRT *LOL*)

But getting to the front of the altar was not as easy. There were hundreds of people trying to get there too, they're still not as violent as the crowd in other countries would be, but it was crazy enough for me to be separated to the others (and made me hyperventilate a bit, coz i hate crowd and what's worse than just crowd is getting stuck in the middle of it with no one you know in sight)

I don't honestly remember the details (because it's been more than half a year *LOL*, and it happened very fast too), but once you reached the front of the alter then you're supposed to pray/make a wish (i'm a Christian so i was not really praying, but i did make a few wishes. One of which is to return to Japan sooner than later with my son-and it's coming true really sooner than later hahaha), clap your hand twice and throw a coin in. Better use yen okay, i'm sure rupiahs are not accepted there HAHAHA

I hardly had time to ask Japanese gods for all of my wishes because you can't stay in front for too long when there are hundreds of other people fighting for your spot

Okay, so i just made some research and find out that we're supposed to go here BEFORE entering the main hall to purify yourself

We didn't know it so we went there afterwards hahaha

And proceed on washing our hands (and some cases face too, like Bobby here. Bobby and his wife Intan are two members of the tour that were also from Surabaya *there were 8 of us from Surabaya in total* and later on we realized that Intan is connected to us in a very complicated way. LOL. Basically her cousin was my sister in law's older sister's ex boyfriend-who was quite close to hunny. Confused yet?)

As we cannot escape from the fact that kiasu Chinese blood runs through our veins, i'm pretty surprised that we didn't get the urge to start bathing there or something

Anyway, i'm not gonna ruin my makeup so i settled for washing my hands instead hahaha

Of course i had to make hunny snapped this fake candid pic for Instagram...

Now, if you know me in real life then you'd know that i hate to do stuffs like ask to take photos with celebrities or whatever. It's just that i don't get starstruck and when i see celebrities, i feel mostly nothing *LOLOLOL* (especially if they're Indonesian celebrities WTF). I also don't like to take pictures with them, and i feel degraded when people are shoving me to snap a pic with them like i want it (ahem STB, ahem. Seriously nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. I especially feel idiotic when they make us take "selfie" with the celebrity on stage, you know they huge crowd selfie kind of thing? Just count me out). In short, i'm a snobbish bitch and i guess i know why people who knows me personally immediately peg me as Disgust from Inside Out as my spirit animal (except that Disgust is clearly not an animal).

So, i actually surprised myself when i had the urge to run around chasing Japanese girls in kimonos to snap pics of them WTF. I guess i love being a tourist and a pic proving i was in Japan with real Japanese girls hahahaha.

So we approached these nice ladies and tried the strategy of basically yelling KAWAIIIII to them, then terrorized asked them for a pic *LOLOLOL*

Originally i just really wanted one pic with any girls at all, but then Silv was pointing at various girls wearing pretty kimonos, the next one better than the previous we ended up spending majority of our free time chasing these girls and fighting our own embarrassments (and fighting each other to approach the girls first AHAHAHA). It was pretty stupid but it was definitely fun *LOL*. Oh that's Viny and Poltak btw, other members of the tour group

We decided to chase after this couple because there's finally a guy wearing kimono (and it doesn't hurt that the girl's pretty hahaha)

Once we're done chasing young women in kimonos like some freaks (seriously, even as i type this i feel a bit embarrassed of myself *LOL*), we.... stuffed ourselves silly!!! There were so many interesting snack stalls there, we just wanted to try everything out! I totally think we spent a small fortune on snacks at Asakusa hahaha.

Me being me, i wasn't interested in the food per se (like hunny who immediately went to purchase some yummy beef on a stick-which i apparently forgot to take pics of), i was more interested in kawaii looking ones :p

Like these pastel colored chocolate dipped-bananas! I was so torn between the pink and the blue WTF

For once i actually picked a blue over pink (but there's a pink drizzle too hahaha) :p. It tasted like regular chocolate-covered banana (the most expensive banana i've ever had, basically) but it just made me so happy so it's totally worth it :p

Hunny was eyeing the grilled fish next

Is it just me or the seller's quite good lookin'? 

My stupid camera focused on the ground instead of the fish! The fish's quite yum actually, would be much better with a bowl of steaming white rice *LOL*

Hunny's in cloud 9, surrounded by all the yummy food hahaha

Ok bought these, i think it was some sort of yakisoba?

Dango!

Mitarashi dango, which i am very familiar with because i've seen them thousands of times in comic books/cartoon/anime >.< but i've never tried in real until then. Conclusion : I love dango!!!

A booth with uber cute looking lollies. Too bad i couldn't bring any home for my son, they're too cute and delicate i'm sure it'd already be shapeless if i do!

The one thing that i was already dying to try since we first saw it on our way in, Alaskan crab (cake)!

Biggest crabcakes i've ever seen. Honestly i was never a crabcake person, i hate those fake crabcakes we often find in hotpots, they are just weird tasting and a bit disgusting for me-but i was really intrigued by these

And it tasted nothing like those crappy crabcakes i had in the past, probably because it's made of genuine Alaskan crab meat

It was juicy and sweet and yummy! I ate most of it coz hunny's not a fan of anything crab-related

So cute!

So many unbelievably cute souvenir cakes!

Who wants to eat Hello Kitty?

I was getting stuffed, but hunny wouldn't slow down. He was like, we die die must east the Senbei!!!

I was more intrested in watching how they make senbeis tho

Coz i'm never interested in rice crackers. Oh, except for the sugar covered Wan Wan. Still not a fan of senbei after having an original Japanese Senbei

I don't remember what this is -___-... 

Tiny overpriced green tea mochis... The Obasan was scary tho, we didn't really understand what she was saying but i think we had to eat the mochi inside and we can't wander around bringing it

I hate ocha whatever so i just posed with it  (i dunno why i looked so pissed off), after seeing this pic... The previous unknown piece of food seems to be some sort of fried mochi???

While we're at the topic of food, i also snapped a pic of boxed friend rice we had for breakfast but i didn't know how to insert it earlier in this post *LOL*. During the tour, Stella went through the extra miles to take care of us-every morning she'd get us various types of food from a nearby combini. Have i ever told you i have a thing for combini foods? Wherever we go, my go to, easy and cheap food would be from combinis  *LOL*, plus they're usually very yummy too (especially Hong Kong and Taiwan's... But that's before i went to Japan, of course). Every night we'd stop by the combini to get some snacks/coffee/drinks/whatever too.

Of course, Indonesian fried rice's much yummier hahaha. But it's quite nice for me (probably people who dislike bland food will not like it tho). I'd suggest you to buy onigiris or sandwiches (their food are always super fresh and yums) instead. If you are on a tight budget while traveling to Japan, limit yourself to eat at a restaurant once a day and get the rest of the meals in combinis, trust me you won't suffer! As for me, i'm not really on a budget, i just love combini food what can i say?

After the free time was over, we met up with the rest of the tour group and guess what's next on the agenda? YEAP. Lunch -___-. I was already so stuffed but ended up having a few bites anyway, Japanese food is a disaster for my diet *LOL*.

Isn't this store just too cute??

This is where we're having our fish lunch!

Like most eateries (except if it's a fine dining kind of place, i suppose) in Japan, the place was packed and there were not a lot of space-Stella and her mum had to eat at the bar seat

The star of the menu would be the fresh sushi platter i guess, and look how pretty they are! Unfortunately i just cannot take raw food (i tried. I know how they say raw seafood in Japan's different because they're so fresh, well i still couldn't swallow them FML) so although i love sushi, i just had to order another thing hahaha

I think there were 4 choices that we could choose from and since there are four of us-we ended up getting one each. These are all tuna i think? Just cooked dfferently

Deep fried

Tuna steak-it doesn't look like it's very good, but it was GOOD. And i'm not even a big fan of fish. Oh, and the piece's massive!

Eh... Stir fried tuna, i think? I told ya i can never be a food blogger

Hunny also bought a gigantic sweet potato nearby the restaurant, forgot to snap pic again zzz

Group pic! As you can see, there were quite some colorful hair colors among us, it's pretty easy to spot each other so we don't get lost hahaha!

I used to whack a whole day of activity in one blog post with like, 200 pics, but i'm more sensible now *LOL*, so i'm going to stop here. Still in day 2, we're going to Tokyo Sky Tree and experience Onsen next! Please stay tuned for Part 4!

#Pink