Kamakura was once the political capital of Japan, but I would have thought religious from the sheer number of temples around. It is as though they were building temples for years and then someone remembered that other buildings might be necessary at some stage. Seeing as you have to pay to access the biggest ones, I chose two of the major sites to have a look at.
First up was the giant Buddha. That is the actual size he was in real life. True story. For a small fee you can also go inside the statue. I did. There was really no reason to do so...
Near the statue I was accosted by a group of Japanese school children. They were asking questions in english for their schoolwork. I'm not convinced they actually go to school at all as the entire town was full of them.
On the way out I spotted purple sweet potatoe flavoured ice cream and obviously had to try some. Despite its name and appearance it tastes very nice. I was going to take a picture of the cone but then I ate it by accident. I'm sure you're able to picture purple icecream though.
The next temple I went to was Hasedera. Known for the largest wooden statue in Japan, I was more taken with the veritable army of Benzaiten statues they have. There must be thousands of them about the place. What are they planning?
After this I went for a wander off the usual tourist route. Still full of shrines and temples, only smaller and with no English signs, or indeed any other foreigners. Very peaceful.
To finish up I took a walk along the waterfront and saw hawks behaving as seagulls do in the stealing of food. This version is considerably more intimidating, however.
Oh, I also discovered that the fist pump was invented by Buddhists.
No comments:
Post a Comment