These posts are ending up a lot longer than intended, partially due to jetlag. That 14 hour time difference doesn’t fool around folks. For the past three days I’ve been able to sleep from precisely 1am to 4am, and…that’s IT. More time for travel blogging, I suppose.
Anyway, on day 5 of our trip we headed into Tokyo…and immediately out again, we were headed for Kamakura. Kamakura is a relatively small city at this point, but it’s LOADED with shrines, gardens, gorgeous architecture…and some really nice beaches.
Though it should be noted that Kamakura has an aggressive hawk issue:
A word about Japanese streets: narrow. The cars are small, but even so.
That, my friends, is a two-way street with a sidewalk.
We started our tour of Kamakura with the temple and gardens at Hase-dera. On the lower levels are the gardens. And SUCH gardens they are!
To one side of the gardens there is an entrance to a cave built directly into the mountainside. Inside the cave are HUNDREDS of Buddha statues. A few are large and built into niches in the wall where you can barely see them in the light of the prayer candles. But the hundreds I’m talking about are in an alcove to the side. They are little sitting Buddhas, and they are each only an inch tall.
And they were everywhere. Even on top of the electric light fixtures!
Just outside of the cave, you run into my very favorite Buddha.
(All the Japanese tourists going by would stop and say “Kawaii!!”, which means “cuuuute!!!”)
Side Note: When visiting Japan in summer, bring WATER and SUNSCREEN. You can get away without the water I suppose, there ARE vending machines every 20 feet, but really you’d save yourself a good 1000 yen per day bringing a water bottle. As for the sunscreen, I never once saw it on sale, but we went through two entire bottles of spf 70. You’ll be out and walking a LOT. And of course, remember previous comments on a little washcloth and a folding fan. 100 yen each and you’ll live by them.
You can then head upward from the gardens and cave to layer upon layer of little temples. One, surrounded by little Buddha statues, appeared to be specifically for prayers for children (to have them, or to keep them healthy, I’m not sure), and there were offerings all over of little toys and shoes. There were little Buddha statues that you could wash as well.
And places to burn incense. You stuck your incense in the ashes of previous ones, and judging from the size of this, we’re talking YEARS of offerings.
At the uppermost point of the temple complex, there were many statues, including a very large wooden Buddha (one of the largest, but no pictures permitted). My favorite bit, however, was the temple library, a small structure, containing a giant rotating centerpiece and cubbies along the walls.
Those little round things you see in there are the ends of SCROLLS, and the building had thousands of them.
There was also a pool with large Buddha feet.
You could even climb further up to check out the temple’s collection of…I think these are hydrangeas? Anyone? Sci is not a botanist…
On the way to the next major attraction we spotted a small Shinto shrine which caught my attention for the rows of prayer flags running up the slope.
But the next attraction was the big one. Literally. This is the Giant Buddha of Kotoku-in. Readers, meet Giant Buddha. Giant Buddha, meet readers.
(Intrepid Neuron now to scale)
The Buddha is over 13 meters tall (very very big), and used to be GILDED. Now when we saw it, we thought of the Statue of Liberty (due to the color and size), except…this was built in the 13th century. And it’s stood ever since, surviving earthquakes, fires, tsunamis, you name it.
And here’s where it got funny. Sci kept getting approached by schoolchildren. You know they are on a school trip because they are wearing matching little hats and bandanas. They would come up in a group with a checklist, because one of the things their teachers have them do at tourist sites is…practice their English on tourists. Sci got at least 3 of these tour groups per day, and they always approached me over any guys I was with (less threatening?). And then it went like this:
Kids: (in chorus) HELLO!
Me: Hello! (don’t say “hi”, because “hai” means “yes” in Japanese, and they will LOL and think you don’t understand them)
(Kids make a check mark)
Kids: (after some conference, pushing one forward with the best skillz) How are you?
Me: I am well, how are you?
Kids: (hurried conference, the one responds) I am GOOD!
(check mark)
Me: Where are you from?
Kids: (some conference for interpretation, this sometimes took a few tries, and answers varied widely)
(check mark)
Kids: Where are YOU from?
Me: America
(check mark)
There is a pause while we size each other up. And then…
Kid:…Christian?
Me:…no
Kid: o_O
The sheer confusion at the end of that conversation was hilarious.
After the Buddha we stopped for a snack. I got a lovely hot dumpling with bean paste in it (woo!!), and Mr. S got this:
These were everywhere. They appear to be balls of rice goo, dipped in…something kind of sweetly flavored. Not bad, but nothing particularly tasty either.
We then hiked off in search of Jochi-Ji, one of the most important Buddhist temples in the Rinzai sect. There I got attacked by more school children with clipboards, and ran into a rickshaw driver and his drive-ees, who were very happy to pose for pictures.
The temple itself was closed, but we got some good pictures of the great bell nearby.
Then we tramped off to the biggest shrine around, the Tsurugaoka Haciman-gu, and there I had a CHAMPIONSHIP weird snack. A got a photo, but right now we’re having photo syncing issues. Suffice it to say that it was 100 yen, bright purple, and the size of a blowpop. It was also covered in grape flavored candy, similar to a blow pop, and then dipped in milk and chocolate. But instead of bubblegum on the inside I was greeted with a giant GRAPE. It was awesome.
The shrine itself is gigantic, and when we visited it was covered in thousands of streamers, lanterns, and folded paper cranes (folding 1000 paper cranes apparently brings extreme good luck) for the upcoming summer festivals.
They also had a fine example of the huge barrels of sake that get donated to the shrines.
As we headed back to Tokyo to meet up with C, we got followed onto the train by an older gentleman. It turns out that he retired, and decided to become fluent in English for his retirement. So he’s been studying for 8 years now, and three times a week he heads two train stops from his town to Kamakura, finds Americans, and chats with them to practice. He picked us, and we were treated to much interesting history about Japan, as well as a rousing, if somewhat light on the details rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. He said he preferred to find Americans as we were the most friendly, but I think he flatters. 🙂
We met up with C in Tokyo, and headed off to KYOTO (don’t worry, we’ll come back to Tokyo later). Just wait, there are even more pictures.
