A trip to Kamakura

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

Today we took a day trip to Kamakura, which is about an hour outside of Tokyo. The Japanese subway and rail system is extremely efficient, immaculately clean and gets you to wherever you want to go in Japan. In Kamakura we visited 2 main areas. The first was the Kotokuin Temple which houses the statue of the Great Buddha. To get there we took a five minute light rail train from Kamakura to the Hase station. The statue is one of the largest of Buddha anywhere and is a very important religious and sacred sight for Buddhists. One has to clean his or her hands at a religious washing area prior to entering the site so as to enter in a clean state. From the Great Buddha statue, we went back to the Kamakura station by light rail and walked about 10 minutes to the main Buddhist shrine of Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, where there are very beautiful shrines and temples to Buddha as well as beautiful gardens (and yes, there were still 2 or 3 beautiful pastel pink/lavender cherry blossom trees which had not yet turned green.) On the long Komachi Dori shopping street which one follows to get to the temples, we even found an oddity, the Catholic Church of Saint Michael. I think that I am in good hands on this trip!

Ashley at the Great Buddha Statue

A family picture

The hand cleaning area

Just missed the full cherry blossom bloom by about a week

The Rickshaw, an historic form of transportation in Japan, still used today

A Japanese wedding taking place at the entrance to the Shrine/temple area

The steps to reach the temple

We're halfway there!

We made it ....

to the Top!

A nice view!

Back down to the bottom

A lovely Japanese garden

Saint Michael's Church

Ashley relaxes with a friend on the way back to the train station

The train is arriving

Home at last!