Posted by Jess
6 February 2011
On Saturday we took a trip to Kamakura, an oceanside town about one hour's train ride from Tokyo. Kamkura was once a very important city for Japan and historians think that in 1200 AD it was the fourth largest city of the world. There is a lot of history here. We prepped Ella for a day of walking and seeing shrines - and the Big Buddha! - and left around 11am. We got to Kamakura at 12:30 and stopped in McDonald's for lunch. I picked the right line for food because the girl who helped us at the counter spoke perfect English - turns out she's half-American. We were pleasantly surprised by the high level of English spoken everywhere in Kamakura and found the shopkeepers to be very friendly and helpful. We saw a lot of foreigners in tour buses as well so I'm sure they get their practice with our language.
After lunch we headed up Komachi-dori, the main shopping street. This street is filled with all types of shops with local food, crafts, toys and practical items – like light bulbs. We window shopped a bit and had fun trying the food. We found something we could hang up in our home in the U.S. and remind us of our time here.
Jason tried a local treat – a dumpling shaped rice cake with red bean paste inside. I cannot find a name for this (Wikipedia, you have failed me!) so if anyone knows, please pass it along so I can update this post.
We also tried an o-senbei, which is a rice cracker that is toasted and then dipped in soy. Not sure if we got a bad one, but I thought it tasted a little burnt. I had a bad after taste in my mouth for quite some time later. Jason got rid of the after taste by having a curry-flavored brat. Ella was really adventurous and had a vanilla ice cream cone. Oh, and Abby took an after lunch siesta.
We realized then that our window shopping was taking a little too long and that we wouldn’t get to as many temples if we didn’t get a move on. It was already 2pm and the temples were closing by 5!
We headed up to the end of the shopping road (uphill and about 1km up the road) until we arrived to Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu Shrine. There are many shrines on this site, including the small shrine at the bottom of the hill called Wakamiya and the senior shrine at the top of the hill called Hongu. In here we also saw some plum blossoms, which the area is known for in February and March. Of course, they were just starting to bloom. We made our way up to Hongu and looked around. Ella and Jason went into a little museum type area that held some artifacts, while I was told from the security guard "no photo area". Sumimasen! (Sorry!)
We headed back down the steps and out through the zen garden to our next stop, Kencho-ji Temple. Kenchoji was only 700m away but the route was up a steep hill. This temple is the most important of the 'Five Great Zen Temples' of Japan houses the oldest zen training monastery in Japan and was my favorite of any temple that we have visited so far. I can't imagine what this looks like when the plants are all in bloom. The temple was built in 1253 and has the most ornate altars and ceilings that I have seen so far. It also has a large temple bell (Bonsho) that is considered a National Treasure. The junipers here are said to be from seedlings brought over 700 years ago from China.
 |
| Juniper Tree |
 |
| Bonsho |
 |
| Walking up to the first hall - Butsuden |
 |
| Can you picture those trees all with cherry blossoms? |
|
 |
| inside the Butsuden |
 |
| Ceiling of the Butsuden |
 |
| Ella at the door of the Butsuden Hall |
 |
| In the Hatto hall |
 |
| Fasting Buddha in the Hatto Hall |
 |
| (Unryu-zu) Dragon painting on ceiling on Hatto Hall |
 |
| Monastery behind the halls. Closed to the public. | |
|
|
From Kencho-ji, we headed downhill to Kita-Kamakura station. Again a longer walk than we anticipated and Ella stopped to buy herself a snack.
We hopped on the train at Kita-Kamakura station to head back to the main station at Kamakura. From there we switched on to the local electric rail line, the Enoshima. The Enoshima runs (literally) through people's backyards and takes you to some of the other areas in Kamakura. We got off at Hase Station and headed up the main street towards Hase-dera temple. This time at least it was a short walk! Again the streets were lined with souvenir shops and restaurants.
Hase-dera temple is a Buddhist temple with a well-known red lantern hanging in the front, a large shrine area dedicated to unborn children with thousands of mini-Jizo statues, and a massive Kannon. The Kannon is 30 feet tall and said to one of two carved from one tree around 720 AD. Legend says that the monk who carved them put one in the temple near Nara and sent the other one to sea, hoping it would find its spiritual home. It washed up in 736 in Kamakura and was enshrined there. Unfortunately you cannot take pictures of the Kannon, so I am borrowing one from someone else's website.
Hase-dera Temple also offered great views of Sagami Bay and Kamakura.
After Hase-dera temple, we were off to the most well known site in Kamakura, the Great Buddha (Daibutsu). This is the second largest Buddha statue in Japan, standing about 37 feet tall and weighing 125 tons. The statue was built in 1252 and I was told that at the time, they used half of Japan's bronze resources to build it. In 1495, there was a tsunami that swept away the temple surrounding the statue, but the statue did not move. The statue was retrofitted later to be earthquake proof, so you can now go in to the Buddha and look around. Unfortunately we got there too late in the day to do that. There is not much else to do here but see the statue, so it was a short walk down and back!
 |
| where would Buddha be without his sandals? |
We decided to eat dinner before heading back to the station and stopped at a restaurant in our guidebook called Sometaro Okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki is a type of food in Japan where you have a hot griddle in the center of your table and you cook a mix of batter, egg, meat, cabbage, and bean paste like a pancake at your table. We also ordered some teppanyaki, not knowing if the okonomiyaki was something the girls would eat. Teppanyaki is just meat and bean sprouts, cooked on the griddle like at Benihana restaurant. Our server immediately recognized our naivety and showed us how to mix our okonomiyaki in the bowl and how long to cook it. We tried one with pork and one with chicken. It was recommended to put some chili sauce on our dinner and we were surprised to find it to be more like sweet barbecue sauce. Jason used that on his and I put soy sauce on mine. The okonomiyaki itself did not have much flavor, but the sauces were just right! Dinner was a bit short as Abby was tired of sitting at this point (she had been in the backpack all day so we can’t blame her!) and Ella was expecting Perkins when we said we were going to get pancakes for dinner. Plus, like I said before, we were all exhausted from a long day of hiking around Kamakura, but Ella’s little legs really got a workout, so we can’t really blame her. Don’t worry, we picked up a cheeseburger for her on the way home!
We hopped back on the Enoshima line to Kamakura Station, and then back on the Japan Railway (JR) line back to Tokyo. We had beautiful weather all day and loved our time in Kamakura. There is a ton more to see there that we just didn’t have the time or energy to go to in one day, but we are hoping to get back when we have some visitors come to town later this Spring.
Kanpai!
Jess
Comments (0)