Another Big Ol’ Buddha

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Sunday morning in Tokyo and I had to decide what to do for the day. I had choices, but my dilemma was due to the fact that it was a Sunday. Whatever I decided, based on my experience of the last few weeks, it was going to be busy. It seems that Sunday is the day that the Japanese get out and spend time with friends and family and see their wonderful country.



In the end, I decided to go to Kamakura. Mostly I based this on Lonely Planet mentioning that Kamakura is usually less crowded than Nikko. If that was the case on Sunday, then Nikko must have been absolutely chockers because it seemed like every man and his dog was at Kamakura. Kamakura, by the way, was at one time the centre of Japanese politics under the Minamoto shoguns. One of my early introductions to Japanese history was via an Amiga computer game called Lords of the Rising Sun, in which you got to play as one of the Minamoto Shoguns – Yoritomo, or his brother Yoshitsune. It was Yoritomo who made Kamakura his capital.



My trip started well, with a simple retracing of yesterday’s steps via the Tokyo metro. Once at Tokyo station, I went to book myself a seat on the train but was told that there are no reserved seats. I then headed off to catch the train, but it turns out there are two platforms at Tokyo station called platform number 1 – one is above ground, one below. Of course, I went to the wrong one first but fortunately I had also written down the name of the train line so once there I knew something was wrong. I was also half an hour early, so there was plenty of time to find the correct platform no.1



When the train arrived, most of the carriages were pretty packed and people were standing – not great for an hour-long train trip. Fortunately, there were seats free in the green car. An American couple got on after me and asked if they needed tickets to be in the carriage. I told them I think so, my rail pass covers it so I wasn’t really sure. They decided to try their luck, but the ticket inspector soon had them off to ride with the other plebs.



I decided to get off the train at Kita-Kamakura rather than Kamakura because there were a few temples near there. It was also near the beginning of the Daibutsu hiking trail – a 3km bush walk to the most famous Kamakura resident. I was far from alone in having that idea.



The first temple I visited was the Engaku-ji, which was basically right at the train station. The temple was founded to pray for those who lost their lives defending Japan from Kublai Khan and his Mongols. I had a walk around and took lots of photos. The buildings are mostly quite new reconstructions though.



Next, I headed to the Tokei-ji temple. The temple was once a very important temple for women, mostly because, in a time when a woman couldn’t divorce her husband without his permission, the law said they were divorced if she spent three years as a nun here. The highlight of the temple was the beautiful gardens. Although the small museum had some interesting artefacts, a couple of which are designated National Important Treasures.



The next stop was Jochi-ji temple, featuring another lovely garden. The Jochi-ji temple lies at the beginning of the hiking trail, so I headed up. The trail started with a reasonably hefty climb to the top of the hill. I am glad I did the trail this way, though, because I felt the other end of the trail was a much steeper climb up the hill. Once up on the hill, the going was somewhat easier, but it was rarely flat. There were a few temples and shrines along the way. I skipped them because I didn’t want to run out of time. I did deviate from the trail though, to go and see the statue of Minamoto no Yoritomo. The trail was really nice, for the most part, wandering through the forest.



At the end of the trail, I descended down into the town of Kamakura. While there were plenty of people on the trail, it was not at all crowded and I had forgotten how many people were around. Arriving at the Daibutsu was a stark reminder. If you read my blog on Nara, you will remember that a Daibutsu is a large statue of Buddha. The one in Kamakura is not as large as the one in Nara, only 11.4 metres instead of 15, but apparently is considered artistically superior. Either way, it was bloody popular and looked great. You could also go inside it, but the line to do so literally went all the way around its base, so I skipped that.



From there, it was about an hour until my train to Tokyo so I decided to walk to the station. There were buses and a metro, I think, but I opted to walk because there were so many people I didn’t know how long it would take. Traffic in the town was also basically at a standstill. I arrived at the station with thousands of others and was very thankful that I had opted for the green class rail pass. I was thoroughly exhausted at this point and most certainly did not want to stand all the way to Tokyo. I wasn’t 100% sure if I was on the right train though, so I asked the ticket inspector when she came around. She said it was, but apologised and said “this is the first class car”. I smiled, showed my rail pass and resisted the urge to tell her that I knew I was in the right car, just not if I was on the right train.

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Photos

The Daibutsu
Kamakura

Paper Lantern
Engaku-ji Temple

Flower in the Garden
Tokei-ji Temple

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Buddha
Very nice photo