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Published: February 3rd 2013
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Daibutsu hand washing. Jocelyn is visiting from the states right now, and while she is here, we're trying to do fun stuff and see lots of things I don't normally get around to. Even though it's winter, and it's not very picturesque, we decided to go to Kamakura on one of my "weekend" days to wander around and see the multitude of shrines and temples there.
It didn't take too long to get there from my neck of the woods - about 60 minutes, give or take with trains and connections. It was cool, but not cold, and though we had our coats on, we were quite comfortable walking around. It wasn't busy, either, which I guess is a benefit of going during the off-season. We made it in good time, by 11 AM, and decided that our first order of business would be heading off to see the Daibutsu - the Giant Buddha statue, made of bronze, on the western edge of the area.
It took us a little while to walk there and we were mostly going off my guide book, which didn't have a lot of detail (so it was eye-balling the map and assuming we were going in
the right direction). Turns out, we totally were (score one for me!) and found it without much issue at all. It was a very cool sight to see. I asked a Japanese woman if she would take a picture of us (in Japanese), and she agreed and then handed the task off to her husband. He ended up talking to Jocelyn in Chinese, because he'd studied a little, and she told him how she was staying with me on holiday in a language I totally do not understand, haha. So, it was a trilingual day for us. He was really nice!
After that, we thought we'd head up to the hiking trail and do a wide arc of the area, but it was really a hike and we weren't really feeling it, so instead, we went back to the main station and started up the other direction to hit some other points on my map. We ended up finding, by chance, the Hachimangu Shrine, which was really big and really pretty. So we spent some time walking through it and taking photos. There are tons of tiny shrines littering the area, and we'd find a couple as we walked
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Jocelyn and me. in the direction I hoped was correct.
By this point, we were hungry, so we stopped at this really cute little local cafe and got sandwich lunch sets. It was really good, and the ladies who worked there were very nice. I'm happy that I feel confident enough with my tiny amount of Japanese that I can go to places like that and still be able to order/understand and talk to the workers; you find some real gems when you stray from the chains.
We headed off after lunch and walked a lot - we probably put in 6 or 7k of walking this day - until we found what we'd been looking for: Hokoku-ji, a temple with a bamboo garden. It cost 200 yen to go into the garden, but it was the money best spent the whole day, because it was AMAZING. It was absolutely gorgeous, and such a uniquely Asian surrounding with the moso bamboo - it's the tallest species of bamboo in the world. According to the pamphlet, there are over 2000 bamboo plants growing in the garden. You could drink green tea, too, but we didn't pay to do that. Just being there
was awesome enough.
I then realized that I'd forgotten my scarf at the cafe, so we got on a bus and got off right across the street from it. The women were so happy I'd come back to get it, they'd saved it behind the counter for me. 😊 It ended up being not a bad thing, since I got it back! We were pretty beat - Jocelyn is still super jetlagged, so we decided that since it was getting a lot cooler, we'd head back towards home. We did stop at a stationary shop first, and picked up some color photos of the shrine we went to.
All in all, it was a really fun day, and Kamakura is pretty amazing. I'm sure it's even better during spring and autumn!
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