Another concentration of Buddhist temples is near the big Asakusa Kannon, so that just by walking from one subway station (Inaricho) to the next (Tawaramachi), I was able to add nine stamps to my collection. The atmosphere in the temples varied a lot. Some of the temples were in their original buildings, others on the second floor of a modern concrete complex. We met a very jovial priest who was still dressed up quite formally from the funeral ceremony he conducted just a moment ago (not really a funeral actually, but the memorial service one year after that). We met a young apprentice whose brush strokes for my album were interrupted twice, once by the telephone and once by a delivery boy. We met very friendly ladies that gave us tea, sweets, scented bags, and a handkerchief. We also met the more business-minded variant, who handed out prepared pages that had been signed and stamped in advance (in that case, you are still supposed to give them an empty page in return).

I have now been to nineteen of the eighty-eight places in Tokyo.