Kamakura

My buddy Dan and I met up and took a trip down to Kamakura today. Kamakura is about an hour south of Tokyo and is know for having many, many temples and shrines. I was thinking we'd be able to blow through the highlights in one day. Now I know why Mike has made so many trips.

Our first stop was Engaku-ji, which is directly outside the Kita-Kamakura train station. I was little disappointed with my pictures as I was having a very tough time with either under- or overexposing my pictures. Switching from the UV filter to the polarized one helped cut the glare of the bright, sunny day, but I still feel like I need to head back down to visit Engaku-ji again. We are going to try to time it so that the foliage is turning when we go back. Maybe a few weeks. My first round of pictures did not come out so well, but I'll add a few here anyways.

These are from Engaku-ji







































































And just like the Imperial Palace gardens, Kamakura is saturated with huge spiders. The webs make for some interesting photo ops though.





























We then walked down the street and entered Jochi-ji, a much smaller shrine which contains three wooden statues representing nyorai (past,) amida (present,) and miroku (future.) The shrine was established in 1238, but like many in the area the buildings were mostly destroyed in the 1923 Kanto Earthquake and have been rebuilt since.















We spotted a small sign that pointed us to the Big Buddha (Daibutsu) and began working our way up a good sized hill. Little did we know that this was actually a hiking trail, and a quite strenuous one at that. We were not too thrilled at this but were already a good way up the hill so decided to see it through. Doing so probably gave us the highlight of our day.

When we finally got to the top of the trail we stopped for a drink. We could do this because we were in Japan, so of course there were vending machines on top of this hill. We started making our way to Zeniarai Benten, a shrine that people visit to clean their money. Legend says that money cleaned at this shrine will double in value (though not immediately.)

In any case we were starting on the path when I noticed many of the Japanese tourists were pointing excitedly and pulling out their cameras. I looked and noticed a large, solitary mountain with a dash of snow at the top. I turned to ask Dan if that was what I thought it was and a Japanese woman excitedly got our attention and pointed and told us "Fuji-san! Fuji-San desu!"















And so it was. The recent passing of the remnants of the latest typhoon has produced so much wind and rain that the lingering pollution had been scoured from the air, making Fuji-san visible when on almost every day of the year from this vantage point it is not.

Given that it is too late in the year for us to climb Fuji-san, I thought the opportunity to snap a few photos was fantastic. A little bit of video as well.

After that little respite we worked our way down to Zeniarai Benten, where for some reason I did not take any pictures. It was a beautiful shrine, located in the middle of a gorge/valley. I'll get some pics when we visit Kamakura again.

We then made our way into town to see the Daibutsu, which was very impressive. It was very crowded, but I managed a few shots that isolated the Buddha and projected his serenity a bit.















And that was about it. More and better pics next time, I promise