(Picture- where I'm sitting right now)

At six AM, there were people up walking around, but Asakusa was very quiet with everything still closed. I don't think I've posted a lot of photos yet but it gets very busy around Nakamise Dori during the day- a bit like Faneuil Hall on a Saturday, I guess- but much more interesting, to me at least. I was able to get some pictures of the statues and temple buildings without a ton of tourists (or all the actual Buddhists come to pray at the temple) standing around. It's also at least 5-7 degrees cooler that early in the morning. The summer heat here isn't a lot different than Boston, but it is still hot enough that I was sweating through all my clothes. Foreigner, check. Scary tattoos, check. Disfigured right hand, check. Giant sweat stains all over my clothes, check. I swear, even now at the farm, we're out in the sun and I soak my clothes through with 'ase' like a sopping sponge wrapped in kleenex while all the other workers are wearing sleeves and pants and are merely sticky. I'm just naturally not a very 'kirei' person, I guess.
Anyway, getting here last week, I caught the end of the rainy season, so at least there's that. Gen-san says it's just 'starting to get hot now'...
When I had looked at a map of Asakusa before leaving, the area I wanted to see seemed huge- what I didn't realize was that all the streets on the map were narrow paths that would mostly only fit a single lane made for a pretty small car. The main roads with 4 or 5 lanes and a bike path are only as wide as an average street in downtown Boston, and the roads are all filled with small shops. Locally owned stores are sort of a popular thing to be getting into right now at home, but here there seem to be few chains, and the ones you see really stand out. There are a ton of 7 Elevens and Baskin Robbins though, and McDonalds, of course.
Walking around and seeing everything was so interesting that I decided to stay another night so I could just spend the whole day wandering around Asakusa.
It's a great neighborhood, though of course I haven't been to other parts of Tokyo yet. The people at the hotel were wonderful and were very patient with my crappy speaking skills, even teaching me a lot more than I knew when I walked in, and so when I go back to Tokyo I may stay there again and take the train to see other parts of the city.
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