Welcome. Over the next hour or so we are going to walk the whole of Sensoji — the gates, the shopping street, the pagoda, the main hall, and the quieter ground behind it that most visitors never reach. Two things before we start. Walk at your own pace: the audio waits for you, and each stop plays when you tap it. And put one earphone in rather than two — this is a crowded place and you want to hear the traffic. Some stops have a second, longer track called Go Deeper. Skip it while you are walking. It is there for the train home. Stand in front of the big red gate, face the temple, and we will begin.

Before you walk under it, use the pedestrian crossing to reach the opposite pavement, then turn around. From here you get the whole thing at once — gate, lantern, and the temple roof behind it. Many people stand directly underneath, so this is the easiest place to frame the whole gate. Take your photograph now. The vermilion gate frames a red paper lantern, 3.9 metres tall and weighing about 700 kilograms. It looks as though it has stood here since the Edo period. The present gate was actually rebuilt in 1960. This gate burned down, and then it was simply not here for ninety-five years. Four generations came to this temple and walked into an empty space where you are standing now. Konosuke Matsushita, the founder of the company now called Panasonic, donated it personally after prayers at the temple were followed by relief from painful joints. Now walk under it. And instead of looking ahead at the temple, look straight up at the base of the lantern. There is a dragon carved into the wood underneath. Coiled, looking down at you. It appears in none of the photographs taken from the front, and thousands of people pass beneath it every hour without knowing it is there. Stand still a moment and let them flow past. Then, before you go on, turn around and look at the back of the gate. Two more figures stand in the alcoves on this side. Almost nobody photographs them, because by the time you can see them, everyone has already turned to face the temple. When you are ready, face the temple. The shopping street ahead is the next stop.

You are on Nakamise-dori. It runs straight to the next gate, shops down both sides the whole way. Walk slowly here, and look at the shape of the street rather than at the goods. Notice how narrow each shop is. Notice how the merchandise comes right out to the edge, as if it were still sitting on a stall. That is exactly what these were. In the late 1600s the people living around here were given permission to trade on the temple's approach, in exchange for cleaning and maintaining the grounds. Commerce as the price of upkeep. The shape you are standing in is a four-hundred-year-old agreement that hardened into buildings. The buildings themselves are young — much younger than they look. Almost nothing in Asakusa is as old as it appears, and you will meet that again today. If you buy one thing on this street, make it age-manju, a deep-fried bean-paste bun. It is good for about a minute after it leaves the fryer, so eat it standing beside the shop. Eating while walking is discouraged here. It is not a rule invented for tourists; it is how a crowded street stays clean without bins. Before you move on, look up at the shutters. Each one has a painting on it. You cannot see them now, with every shop open — but when they close at night the whole approach becomes a single continuous picture. It is a completely different reason to come back after dark. If the crowd is heavy, the side streets to your left and right run parallel and are almost empty. You lose the shops, you keep your pace, and you rejoin at the same gate.