Asakusa fills with portable shrines. In May, the old downtown district of Tokyo holds the Sanja Matsuri, said to draw 1.8 million people over three days. Roughly a hundred neighborhood shrines parade around Senso-ji temple all at once, the bearers' cries of "Soiya, soiya" filling the streets. Before dawn on Sunday comes the launch of the three main shrines; people gather while it is still dark, and the moment the shrines are hoisted, the whole town erupts. The festival is said to date to the Kamakura period, honoring as gods the two fishermen brothers who found the temple's sacred image and the man connected to it, three figures, hence "Sanja," three shrines. Some bearers carry the shrines with their tattooed backs bared. Here is the old swagger of Edo, still alive.