Goal of this side-excursion was to see the Daibutsu, or Great Buddha, the 2nd largest Buddha statue in Japan. Sometimes, you do have to settle for second best, but this Buddha made up for it by being hollow and accessible.
In order to get to Kamakura (or more specific, the town of Hase, a part of Kamakura), we changed in Fujisawa to the Enoden (Enoshima Electric Railway) which took us along the coastline where we could see the peninsula Enoshima and the ocean. Quite the scenic route, when the other tourists packing the train moved their heads enough so we could see out. Before going to Hakone, Lynda had her large pieces of luggage sent directly from our Tokyo hotel to the ryokan (guesthouse) we were going to stay in during our last days in Tokyo, so she didn't have to lug those around. We put the remaining pieces into a locker in Fujisawa so we could be footloose and fancy free in Hase.
Hase is lined with shrines and temples and accordingly popular with visitors. Having already seen so many shrines and temples on our previous visits, we only stopped at one minor one and then made a beeline to Kotokuin Temple to see the main attraction. The Daibutsu is around 13 m (44 ft) tall, made of bronze and dates back to the 1200's. For a measly $0.18 admission fee, we got in line behind a bunch of elementary school kids to see what all the fuss is about. As is usual in Japan with historical sights, there was a very narrow staircase leading inside with 2-way traffic. Squeezing in sideways while staying with the flow and not tripping on the stairs is an art form one has to quickly master when visiting castles or hollow statues. Being envious of people twice my age accomplishing the task without batting an eye or even being out of breath is a side effect.
Temple gate
Temple yard
Daibutsu, Great Buddha
There was an explanation on how the statue was constructed, but I gave up understanding the technical part after two sentences and took some pictures instead.
Inside the statue; you're looking up, into the head
Yeah, I was there!
Outside of the temple we finally found what we really came here for--a souvenir shop! I was going to do all of my souvenir shopping back in Tokyo so I wouldn't have to carry around stuff, but this was too tempting. And we had to get the story of all of the Obama pictures hanging in the shop. Turns out the old lady who ran the shop had shaken Obama's hand after he had visited the temple. I wonder if he bought a Samurai-sword shaped letter opener.
Lynda grabs any brochure she can possibly find, which I try to avoid because more brochures = more stuff to carry around, but that's why we travel well together. I do the navigating and she reads brochures and tells me where to navigate to. She had seen something about a hydrangea temple and since it was on our way back to the train station, we wanted to stop there. We did get hungry along the way and found a food truck with some interesting street food: jakoyaki or baby anchovy dumplings, only to be found in that area.
They were so good, we went glutton and ordered a second portion. The food truck operator was only to happy to comply, feeling very honored that we liked his food so much.
Food truck
Waiting for the prize
Jakoyaki
The chef in action
On to the hydrangea temple, officially known as Hasedera, site of the 11-headed Kannon (if you do not know who that is, 1. shame on you for not reading my previous posts; 2. go back and read my previous posts). I'll give you the short form of the legend, just because it's a good story: in 721 C.E. a monk discovered a sacred large camphor tree near Hase. How he knew it was sacred, I don't know. This is all according to a brochure Lynda picked up.
The monk had two 11-headed Kannon statues carved; one was enshrined in the Hasedera Temple in Nara (aka somewhere else), the other thrown into the sea with the prayer to reappear to save the people (I don't know from what--that wasn't in the brochure).
15 years later, the statue washed ashore near Kamakura, sending out rays of light. It was brought to its current location and the second Hasedera Temple constructed for it. However this temple came to be, it is beautiful!
Unfortunately, it was not allowed to take pictures of the 11-headed Kannon, but here are some impressions of the rest of the place.
After our visit, we got back onto the trains and arrived in Tokyo in time to get our subway pass. A final subway ride brought us to our final destination: our ryokan in Asakusa, an older part of Tokyo, right by the Sensoji Temple. Sound familiar? It does! The parade and the carrying around of the mikoshi last Friday and Saturday all took place here.
Since it was a little bit late already, we used the time for some more shopping. I bought some clothing and we found a 100 yen shop (something like our Dollar Tree) where I got some souvenirs for school. We then wandered around a bit and stumbled onto Hoppy Dori, a street lined with eateries, tables outside and lots of people. It's hard to get a table at 8:30 on a Friday night. Dori, BTW, means street and Hoppy is a popular drink, which we didn't try, but the logo was everywhere in that street. We did finally find an open table and enjoyed some food as well as people-watching.
Hoppy Dori--not my photo! I got this off of the internet, because for some unexplainable reason, I don't have a picture.
Time to crash!
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