A Fish Out of Water: Kamakura

Today my friend Emi and I joined a day trip to Kamakura with the Tokyo Gaijins, a group who organizes outdoor activities for foreigners and Japanese. On the schedule for the day were visits to temples, hiking, a yabusame (horseback archery) demonstration, and a dip in an onsen (hot spring).

Our first stop was Engakuji Temple, near Kamakura station. The grounds of Engakuji are large enough to accommodate all 47 of us without getting crowded (although the rain probably helped, by keeping away other visitors).

Engakuji's gardens are pretty, but I was more attracted by the landscaping along the paths. The greenery looked beautiful in the rain, and several varieties of flowers were in bloom, including this hanadaikon (Orychophragmus violaceus)

It was early in the morning, and the monks were busy. My previous visits to Kamakura have always been in the afternoon, and I've always wondered where all the priests and monks were- they never seem to be around. I guess they do all their outside work in the mornings before the crowds get too thick- perhaps to avoid camera-toting tourists like me.

Next we walked to Kenchoji, but the rain prevented me from taking many pictures (other than a rather creepy statue apparently received from Pakistan last year at the Aichi Expo).

From Kenchoji we left the main road and followed the Daibutsu Hiking Trail through hilly forests. The forest was lovely and the rain only enhanced the lush spring foliage and flowers. The 3-km trail was quite steep in places and very slippery, and our pace was fast. Amazingly, I didn't fall once. We stopped once for a break and group photo, taken by our tour guide Ricky (who was so laden with our cameras it was a miracle he didn't topple over).

We stopped along the way at Zeniarai Benten, a shrine featuring a pretty little garden and a small cave. At the entrance to the cave hang colourful tassels of origami cranes, and further inside is a table piled with little reed baskets next to a spring. Zeniarai means coin-washing, and that's what you do here- it is said that any money washed in the spring will double. So I emptied my wallet of change and washed 1726 yen worth of coins. Hopefully they'll start reproducing themselves soon.

A bit more hiking brought us to Kotokuin, home of the Daibutsu (Great Buddha). This is one of two large bronze Buddhas in Japan, with the other being in Nara. Although Nara's Daibutsu is the bigger of the two (I just visited it last month on my cross-Japan tour), I find Kamakura's to be more impressive. Probably because it is out in the open, whereas Nara's is housed in a huge wooden building which kind of overwhelms it.

Just once I'd like to visit Kamakura on a bright sunny day, and see what the Daibutsu looks like against a blue sky.

This is the incense burner in front of the Daibutsu. You are meant to cup the smoke with your hands and waft it on to whatever part of your body that needs healing or improving. Emi directed the smoke to her head, you can interpret that as you like.

Everyone went off to eat lunch at the local restaurants, but being cheapskates we had brought our own. It was still raining, and now that we were no longer hiking we were freezing. So our cold onigiri (rice balls) and edamame (green soybeans) weren't much fun to eat, and after a small bite each we put the rest of our lunches back in our bags for later.

Our final temple of the day was the nearby Hasedera. This is one of my favourite temples in Kamakura, set on a large swath of hillside and busy with paths, gardens and sub-temples.

The gardens and landscaping are beautiful, there is a view of the sea from the temple grounds, and there's lots of stuff to see including a spinning prayer wheel and a giant gilded wooden statue of the goddess Kannon.

It is also an incredibly sad place, being home to the Sentai Jizo (literally one thousand Jizo, although there seems to be more than a thousand of them). Jizo is the patron saint of children, and each of these little stone jizo sculptures represents the soul of a mizuko (an infant lost early in its life, especially through miscarriage, abortion, and stillbirth).

From there we headed to the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine, the largest shrine in Kamakura, to catch the last day of the Kamakura Matsuri (Kamakura festival). We were just in time to see yabusame (horseback archery), although "see" is hardly the right word- it was crowded and the view was blocked by trees and tents, so we couldn't really see much of anything.

This is what happened: over the tops of several rows of heads and through a forest of raised cameras, cellphones and video recorders a vaguely horse-like blur streaked by. A few seconds later a loud thwak! could be heard, followed by wild clapping. Four or five more blurry streaks went by, followed by the same thwakking and clapping, and then the horses paraded by again, slowly this time, with the archers bowing to the applause of the crowd. Not terribly exciting, and as cool as the horses and archers looked it wasn't worth squeezing ourselves into the jostling crowd just to catch a few short glimpses of the action. I wonder why they don't do it in a more open place, where people might actually be able to see what's going on?

Next we took a train to the Inamuragasaki Onsen. I had no idea there was an onsen (hot spring) in Kamakura, but there it was. There was an indoor and outdoor bath, along with a cold bath and a sauna. All of the baths were full of dark brown water that gave the skin a wonderful smooth and slippery texture. Somebody said that black tea had been added to the water, but it didn't have any tea smell so I'm not sure. In any case, it made my skin nice and soft and it was so nice to clean off a long day's worth of sweat and grime before heading home.

By this time much of the group had gone home, and the remaining members were headed to Kawasaki for dinner and karaoke. As dinner was at a Philippine restaurant with an all-you-can-eat dinner for 1000 yen, we were really tempted to go, but we still had most of our lunches in our bags and didn't want to waste our food. So we said good-bye and ate on the train home.

It was a fun day, and although the weather could have been better we had a great time. We weren't overwhelmed by the friendliness of the participants, but I suppose that's natural with such a big group, especially considering over half of of them were Japanese (who are generally rather shy). But we got a lot of good exercise and saw some neat stuff, so we're not complaining.

There are some upcoming events that look interesting, like a two-day rafting and canyoning trip that we're thinking of taking. Not that I've ever rafted or cayoned before, but it can't be that hard, can it?

See more pictures in my Kamakura album.

Tags: kamakura japan day trip

Comments

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Beautiful pictures! I've seen the Daibutsu (on a sunny day!) but none of the other locations. I'll make a point of seeing them next time.

Posted by: Giles | 2006.04.18 at 01:32 AM

What a lovely posts! Thanks for the gorgeous photographs.

cheers,
Pim

Posted by: Pim | 2006.04.18 at 05:31 AM

Amy;
GORGEOUS photos!!!!! I remember so many of the sights and some new ones , too... Thank you, thank you!!!! I was surprised to see you "on the road" again so soon...tee hee... Glad you had a good time.

Posted by: carlyn | 2006.04.18 at 08:19 AM

Wonoderful pictures!!! I've been to Kamakuram, but never visited these beautiful temples...

Activituis by the Group seems interesting! I enjoyed (sometimes scared )rafting so much when I was in CA. It's really fun!! I wish I could join you..

Posted by: marya's mom | 2006.04.18 at 08:40 AM

Wow! Looks like it was a full day! I had never heard of Tokyo Gaijins before...hmm...might have to check out their upcoming activities.

Posted by: drh | 2006.04.18 at 11:02 AM

Thanks! I had a great time and have vowed to go again soon. Kamakura is a lovely place and really changes each season, so I don't think I could ever get tired of the place.

Marya's Mom, you tried rafting in California? Wow! I'm scared too, as I've never done it before. Maybe you can give me some tips...

Drh, it was fun. You pay more for their trips and activities than you would if you did it by yourself, but it's fun to do stuff with a group sometimes. And if you're as terrible at organizing this kind of thing as I am, it's nice to have someone else do it.

Posted by: Amy | 2006.04.24 at 10:43 AM