Asakusa Guided Walking Tour with Senso-ji Temple, Asakusa Shrine & Nakamise Street
Asakusa Guided Walking Tour with Senso-ji Temple, Asakusa Shrine & Nakamise Street
Tokyo
What are the highlights of this tour?
- Explore Asakusa at your own pace with a local guide who adjusts the route to your group.
- Pass beneath the giant red lantern of Kaminarimon and walk into Sensoji, Tokyo's oldest temple.
- Draw an omikuji fortune at Sensoji and learn what locals do when their luck comes up short.
- Step into Asakusa Shrine, the quieter Shinto shrine that sits just beside Sensoji's main hall.
About
You'll catch the smell of incense before you see the temple. We meet just outside Asakusa Station, and within minutes you're standing under Kaminarimon's huge red lantern, the Thunder Gate that has welcomed visitors to Sensoji for over a thousand years. Your guide lays out the Asakusa story as you go: how it grew from a fishing village into Tokyo's old entertainment district.
Inside Sensoji, you'll wave incense smoke over yourself at the great bronze burner for good health, then climb to the main hall where locals stop to pray on their way to work. Shake a metal cylinder to draw your omikuji fortune, one of the most-shared moments on TikTok and Instagram from Tokyo. If it's a bad one, your guide will show you where to tie it up and leave the bad luck behind.
Next, slip around the side of the main hall to Asakusa Shrine. It's a Shinto shrine built for the three men linked to Sensoji's founding legend, and it runs at a slower pace than the temple next door. Your guide covers the basics of shrine etiquette, from the bow-bow-clap-clap-bow ritual to the hand-washing basin, so you can pay your respects like a local.
We finish on Nakamise, the long shopping street leading up to the temple. Stalls here have sold snacks and souvenirs to temple visitors for about 300 years. Pick up hot ningyo-yaki (little sponge cakes filled with red bean), crispy age-manju or a folding fan to take home, and ask your guide which stalls the locals actually queue for. The tour ends here at noon, right in the middle of Asakusa, so you're free to stay for lunch or head off on your own.