Asakusa - shops and owls

On Thursday we went to Asakusa.

 The area was very touristy. There were many places selling or renting kimonos.

 Cute little candles.

 Pretty candies.

 There were a lot of historical buildings.

 Lauren had a hard time choosing which cat to buy. There were so many.

 Also popular: owls, the seven lucky gods.

The Kaminarimon (Thunder Gate) leading to the Sensō-ji, Tokyo's oldest temple.

 Nakamise-dōri, the street leading up to the temple. It's about 250 m long and has about 89 shops.

 

 Festival masks. I prefer these traditional ones but you can also get ones that look like Ultraman or Thomas the Tank Engine.

 MEGACHONK

 There was a rickshaw service on the wider streets.

 This girl was advertising the Owl Cafe, where we did end up going.

 We like owls, but the real draw was the capybara.

 This owl's name is Yoda.

 You're allowed to gently pet them with the back of your hand.

 Here she is, keeping warm by the stove.

 This monkey was a rascal.

 Fennec foxes.

 Meerkats, too.

 A very cute pair of barn owls.

 Some snowy owls. One of them was named Hedwig, naturally.

 Flamingos.

 The ibis was hopping around, teasing the flamingos.

 This owl was a bit of a biter.

 A cute white snake. White snakes are lucky in Japan.

 A little degu. He stayed in his house.

 A red parrot.

 The meerkats spent a lot of time sleeping on top of each other.

 The monkey was very grabby.

 The capybara's fur was coarse, kind of like a horsehair brush.

 She walked around to visit the flamingos.

 These were just on some building.

 More pictures of the temple. the area was so big we wound up going in and out of it a few times.

 We saw more foreign tourists here than anywhere else so far.

 

 There's the Tokyo Skytree second from the left. At 634 m, it's the tallest structure in Japan and the tallest tower in the world (second tallest structure in the world).

To right of that are the Asahi Breweries Headquarters, designed to look like a glass of beer, and the Asahi Beer Hall, designed by French designer Phillipe Starck. It's topped with its distinctive golden flame (Flamme d'Or), affectionately referred to as the Golden Turd.

 A shelf of fake meat in front of a yakiniku place.

 The entrance of what probably used to be an adult goods store. It seemed pretty empty inside from what we could tell without going inside.

 We had okonomiyaki for dinner. Lauren got pork and I had beef tendon and kimchi.

 This is Chiyoda.

 We walked around the Imperial Palace park grounds. This statue is of the great samurai warrior, Kusunoki Masashige.