Ikegami Honmonji

This major temple in southern Tokyo marks the site where the founder of an important Buddhist school died in the thirteenth century, making it one of the sect's holiest places. Reached by a long flight of stone steps, its hilltop precinct holds a five-story pagoda from the early seventeenth century that survived war and earthquake, the oldest such structure in the Kanto region. Each autumn a huge nighttime festival brings tens of thousands of pilgrims carrying illuminated lantern floats up to the temple amid drums and light.