Day 7 - Kamakura - 31 March 2009

Hello, yes it is me, Sarah, blogging again.  Alan will undoubtedly comment in red. She won't let me write the blog any more because apparently I take too long. So you'll have to put up with her nonsensical ramblings.

 

From the lack of photos you would think we did nothing today, but it was quite the contrary.  We did a hell of a lot of walking, just didn't see much.

 

We had a beautiful sleep last night.  The bed here is glorious and the pillows are so soft.  The blockout curtains are so dark that when I got up to go to the toilet this morning, I thought it was about 5am and it turned out to be after 8.30am.

 

We left the hotel at 10am and was unable to get into the free shuttle to the station.  We therefore hopped in a taxi for a few dollars.  Thankfully it is a flat fee from the hotel to the station so it didn't matter that it took us 10 minutes to get there.

 

We then boarded the train for Kamakura, one of Japan’s most popular sightseeing spots.  Kamakura is a historic seaside city an hour out of Tokyo.  It was a former capital of Japan (from 1192 to 1333), and has many renowned Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines.

After getting off the train we went to information although she wasn't very informative. She gave us a map and directions to the 850 tonne bronze Great Buddha. We started walking and after 10 minutes came upon a sign saying that he was another 1.6kms away.  It then occurred to us that we were the ONLY ones walking.  She had failed to give us information that there is a very nice train that takes you right there.  But we continued to walk and finally found the crowds at the Buddha. It was a nice day for a walk although the roads and footpaths were very narrow and we weren't always sure if we were heading in the right direction. We also saw a family of squirrels playing on a roof and we stopped in a shop where Sarah got to pat a cat who was sitting in front of a heater.

As you can see from the photos, Alan was very respectful of him.

We then returned to our starting point in Kamakura via the train.  I had notes about Dankazura, a 100 metre long pedestrian approach, lined with cherry blossom trees, leading to the colourful Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine. The notes said "2 minutes from the station" Alan thought he had followed the directions but we ended up walking through the extremely crowded shopping town of Kamakura. I followed the map perfectly well and you know it. There were lots of nice food smells but we could never quite work out where the nice smells were coming from.  After walking another 20 minutes we came across the Shrine.  After walking around there for a while we then saw the pedestrian approach.  It would be beautiful if the cherry blossoms were in full bloom.  We are still hopeful that we will at some stage see them in that state.

We continued the walk which was a hell of a lot more than 2 minutes walk from the station.  We stopped in at KFC for some food, well we think it was food.  The chicken was so greasy and the Fanta was green and very sweet. I asked for Fanta and she gave me diet coke after which she gave me something a sickly green colour instead. But it was Sarahs drink so it didn't really matter. We then boarded the train back towards our hotel.  We were 1 minute late for the shuttle but we waited to see if he was running late, which we never find anyone runs late in Japan.  After 6 minutes we decided to take the 30 minute walk back to the hotel.  We were about 5 minutes in to it when we saw the shuttle.  We were shocked, he was running late.  By this stage though we were well past the pick up stop so we kept walking, and managed to pick up some more of that chocolate milk Alan likes so much. I'm not the only one.

Back in the room we decided it was nap time.  It was interrupted a few times; first by some crows sitting on our balcony and then by a gong coming from the shrine next to the hotel.

Tonight we ventured back towards the station, this time on the shuttle and had dinner in a little Japanese bar.  I had garlic scallops and shrimp and Alan had a pork and shrimp paella.  However, it would appear that you are supposed to always share food in Japan so Alan didn't get his paella until I was completely finished my meal.  As we arrived before 8pm we received a 20% discount for happy hour. Bargain! Happy hour actually lasts for 3 hours. Back on the shuttle to the hotel we are now thinking it's time for a spa. We could get used to this life.