Visiting the Giant Buddha

28.09.2019 - A Saturday in Kamakura

One of my Saturday trips took me to Kamakura, which is often referred to as a small Kyoto because of its many shrines and temples. Kamakura was actually the capital of Japan from 1185 to 1333. However, there is nothing left of that today. Instead, Kamakura, surrounded by mountains, located by the sea and 50km away from Tokyo, has a nice small town atmosphere.

Originally, I wanted to go on a little hike and had already planned a route from temple to temple through the wooded hills. However, at the first temple (Jōchi-ji) I had to realize that the path was closed due to damage caused by Typhoon Faixal... I hadn't expected that at all, because apart from the stormy night in Tokyo, I hardly noticed anything about Faixal - and that was already 3 weeks ago 🤨 Well, there was nothing I could do about it, so I had to walk along the road from temple to temple towards the town center.

At temple No. 2 (Kenchō-ji) I had just sat down on a bench when an older gentleman with snowy white hair (I think he was English) approached me and asked me in English if I had a few minutes to talk to some students. Well, why not? Just the short conversation with him was great - to understand everything without any effort 😋 So I walked a few meters with him and there was a group of 10 Japanese students. They stood in a semicircle around me at a respectful distance and each one took turns reading and asking me a question - what's my name, where do I come from, how long have I been here, what else do I want to see,... . Really funny, especially the little boy. While the others were rather reserved, he was the 'curious one', who had no inhibitions and not only read his sentence, but also gave me the tip to definitely go to the beach. And at the end he even gave me an origami penguin as a gift 🐧 😊 Really cute. From the teacher, I learned that their school is right next to the temple. I assume that the English club probably goes on a field trip to the temple more often to find tourists to practice English with 😉

From there, I continued to the Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū Shrine, where I saw the end of a Shinto wedding - everyone in beautiful kimonos and the bride with a fluffy, white ... duvet and matching pillowcase on her head.. 🤣

From there, I walked down Komachi Dori towards the sea. Here, souvenir shops, snack stalls, restaurants and snack vendors lined up one after another... and there was the relatively unusual street food for Japan - with people eating while walking and not necessarily standing next to the stall or in a quiet corner.

Yes, and then I was at the beach 😍 I dipped my feet in the water, but it wasn't that beautiful - it's a city beach after all, and there were quite a few surfers.

The last destination of the day was the giant Buddha (Daibutsu) of the Kōtoku-in Temple. With its 13m, the bronze statue built in 1252 is one of the largest Buddha statues in Japan. It used to be covered, but over time, typhoons destroyed the buildings around it, so now it stands freely. Yes, it's quite nice, but there were also a looooot of tourists...

With heavy feet from walking a lot and slightly annoyed by the many tourists, I decided not to go to Cat Island Enoshima but to go back 🐱‍🏍