Kamakura

Chihiro's friend Tomoko works at Japan Rail, and wanted to use her staff discount to go on a daytrip somewhere with Chihiro and I. Chihiro suggested Kamakura because it's only a two hour train ride from Shizuoka, and it was the capital of Japan from the 12th to 14th centuries. Today it's more of a town than a city, though it does have a lot of stuff to see. The main temple, Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu, is apparently dedicated to the god of war, but the fiercest thing we could find was this dog-lion with a toothy grin. We also had our fortunes told at the temple, but none of them were very lucky. Mine did contain helpful advice such as "If your work is unbearable, you must work harder" and "If you have ill-health, see a better doctor". It may have lost something in the translation. We weren't particularly happy with our fortunes, so we decided to tie them to the back-luck rack (in the second photo) and unburden ourselves of the fortune associated with them. It seems like a win-win situation for the fortune tellers and the patrons no matter what the fortune is!

Lunch was included in the tickets, which was just as well because it was a fairly fancy meal. I counted 17 different types of food! Unfortunately there was none left over to give to the infinitely-hungry koi at the next temple. They must be well fed by tourists though, because they are very quick to flock to anyone passing by.

The main attraction at this temple was a 9m high wooden statue of the goddess of mercy, dating from the 8th century. It was an impressive sight, with the lighting giving it a very mystical appearance, though no photos were allowed. The rest of the temple grounds was also pretty interesting. Many of the statues had clothing of caps and bibs, and one statue could be "watered" by visitors.

In one part, there were many statues to guard the souls of children who had died or were lost through miscarriage. Some were clothed by the mothers to keep them warm, and others had childrens toys dangling from them. The place had a sad, but slightly odd feeling, probably because of the contrast between ancient things and modern plastic toys. After that, we browsed the prayer rack, which is always an interesting thing to do at temples. People buy wooden plates to write their prayers on, and a few of them are in English. I had to laugh at this cheeky prayer! (on the right)

The last place we went was the famous bronze "great buddha", which was very impressive. It is 11.4m tall, and used to have a building around it before a tsunami washed it away in 1495. We could go inside the statue through a narrow door, and I was joking about being too fat to fit through when I noticed a couple of very stout germans standing near us and not looking very happy at all... oops.