Asakusa

Today I met Candice and James, who are finishing off their travels after the Conference. We met at Ueno then went out to Asakusa, just a few stops on the Ginza line. Asakusa is the center of Tokyo's shitamachi, "low city", one of Tokyo's few districts, which have preserved a certain atmosphere of the old Tokyo. Asakusa's main attraction is Sensoji a very popular Buddhist temple, built in the 7th century. The temple is approached via the Nakamise, a shopping street that has been providing temple visitors with a variety of traditional, local snacks and tourist souvenirs for centuries.

There were queues of people lined up to pray at the shrine, and many young people taking advantage of the hot weather to wear traditional summer yukata. Candice and James took advantage of the shopping street to buy Yukata and other gifts. James was also an adventurous eater, trying anything that took his fancy.
We then strolled along the side streets checking out the various shops and looking for a place for dinner. We ended up in a BBQ restaurant that had "melt in your mouth" beef . Sugoi!!
After, we wandered back for ice cream which we ate hanging over the Sumida River Bridge.
It was a lovely evening as a storm at 2pm brought heavy rain for a solid 30 minutes then seemed to pass. It left things muggy but a cool breeze made the evening stroll very pleasant The first time we have been cool we all agreed.

AT the end of the day all shops had shutters to pull down and they all had designs like this on them It created a lovely street scape as we strolled along.

James is a scientist, working in dentistry and he pointed out chewing gum called Recaldent that has a peptide that binds to teeth to strengthen enamel, developed by his team in Australia. It is prescribed in Australia but available everywhere in Asia. So I bought some apple flavour in a small packet, but it was in small tubs as well, but grape flavour Ugh! I will look for some more in a good flavour. Never too late to strengthen your teeth J. said!.