We wandered around for a while an eventually stopped at a little ramen shop for lunch. Outside of the temple there were long streets of stalls selling all kinds of souvenirs. The temple area was packed with people, many lighting incense sticks or tossing coins into a big trough in front of the Buddha statue. We arrived in the city around noon on Saturday and immediately set out to see the Sensoji Temple which was within walking distance of our hostel. It seemed a shame to live so nearby (less than a 2-hr flight) for two years and never make it to the biggest city in the world. We’ve been to Osaka and Kyoto in the past, but we’d never been further than the airport in Tokyo. This is our final holiday/day off before the end of our contract in August and was therefore our last opportunity to travel, so even though it was only a few days, we headed to Tokyo to take advantage of them. Buddha’s birthday is celebrated according to the Lunar Calendar which means it’s on a different day each year, so it really was a happy coincidence that it fell on a Monday, creating a long weekend for us government employees. Usually, Korean holidays don’t coincide with American ones, but this past weekend (Memorial Day in the US) happened to be the holiday celebrating Buddha’s Birthday in Asia.
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