We slept so well! Good bed, nice pajamas.  Yeah, every hotel has pajamas! Of course, though we are up early because of the jet lag, so no problems meeting our guide for our Kamakura tour at 8am.

Unfortunately, it is not a beautiful day today – it is raining and cold, oh and did I mention windy? – as in really, really wet and chilly.  We have the gear, but this entire tour is a series of temple visits, mostly outside.  Ugh.  We try to text Shuji, our guide to ask if tomorrow would be better, but it is too late, and he is already here.  He had actually tried to contact us as well to see if we could push the tour back to later in the morning, but we missed that as well. So, here we all are, and here we all go out into the rain. 

Following Shuji out into the rain, we run to the mall to hop on the metro and begin our journey to Kamakura.  We are heading to the coastal area, which is steeped in so much ancient history as it was the first seat of Samurai control. Shuji was great, walking us around and through the tons and tons of people in the train stations (OMG Yokohama station is crazy – and it’s not even anywhere near as big as Tokyo station where we’ll be in a month!) and navigated us through umbrellas on the narrow sidewalks once we were in Kamakura. As we move from train to train, to different railways and different fares (thank God for the Suica card, although after today we may have to refill it!), we get to know Shuji better. He is retired from the banking profession (small world) and doing tours part time in retirement. And even smaller world?  He studied for his masters at Columbia in NYC, but before he went there, he went to CU at Boulder for summer school.  In 1978 no less!!!  We missed each other by a month at the most.  Can you believe it?  That is just amazing! 

So, anyhow, we eventually make it to Kamakura and begin our soggy explorations at the Kotoku-in, the Great Buddha of Kamakura.  This is a massive 11.4 meter tall 121 ton bronze Buddha, the second tallest bronze Buddha statue in Japan. Construction began in 1252 and took 10 years. Totally amazing. And because of the weather, there was hardly anyone there. It was fabulous. We even got to go inside the Buddha – which was wild. We could see how the statue was constructed with blocks and an explanation, even in English.  Pretty cool.

Next we went to Shuji’s favorite temple, the Hasedera, which has huge gorgeous grounds, beautiful trees and ponds,

over a thousand miniature Buddha images,

a happy Buddha whose knee we rub for luck,

and also this bizarre Oyster shell shrine (because the story of the huge Golden Buddha in the main temple is that it was thrown out into the sea and floated there for months before drowning, where the oysters hoisted it up and floated it back to land – it is a massive Buddha so there must have been a whole lot of oysters!).

Leaving the Hasedera, we stopped for coffee – what is called “light coffee” but is actually what I would call normal, Americanized coffee – thank God, drying up and warming up – then back out into the rain and wind we go to our next temple, Tsurugaoka Hachimangu.

To get there we walk down what would be the most gorgeous cherry blossomed lined walk in the world – except for aforementioned rain and wind!  It was still cool and neat – and it led us right to Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, the main temple, which had 2 beautiful lakes fronting a traditional Japanese style temple. 

Shuji walked us around to the “husband and wife” rocks, that we rubbed for a healthy marriage, then through the main temple (no photos allowed) and out onto the plaza in front of the temple for photos on the outside. Totally fun!

But also totally wet and freezing and by this point, we felt like frozen drowned rats! We decided it was lunch time, and Shuji didn’t put up an argument! So we went in search of lunch, stopping at Wasai Yakura, a favorite of Shuji’s, where he knows the owner who took excellent care of us.  We had a wonderful traditional Japanese/western lunch of hamburger and sauce (really Salisbury steak, but excellent beef) and beef stew – sort of like beef bourguignon but with salad and soup.  Kamakura is known for its vegetables, and the salad was amazing with the best tasting and prettiest veggies!  And then the owner brought us this thing called an Ice plant to try.  It was amazing – it looked like it had ice crystals on it, tasted salty but literally melted in your mouth. 

After comfortably sitting in the lovely warm atmosphere of the restaurant, we made the executive decision that we didn’t want to continue on adventuring after lunch – we were too happy and full and warm.  Cutting the tour short by maybe 2 hours, we simply headed back to Yokohama – with a quick pit stop at a famous local bakery for cookies in the shape of pigeons.  I think it is actually a dove, but everyone calls it a pigeon and the original owner started the cookie shape in the 1900’s.  Called Hato Sabure, it is basically a shortbread cookie, and very good.  We have 5 of them, so we’ll see if we can make them last until the ship!

Despite the weather, it was a total blast today. Shuji was great, Kamakura amazing and we are very glad we braved the inclement weather to see what we did. 

Later that evening, we ventured out into what has become a gorgeous night, along the harbor front, past the now lit and still beautiful cherry blossom trees, to another food court type place we found really close to the hotel.

Located in a building called Hammerhead, it is actually a pier redeveloped into a shopping mall with tons of food stalls on the first level.  They call it a Ramen hall, and there are a bunch of stalls from which to choose.  We settle on the first one inside the door, with big tables and different types of pork ramen.  Beer and wine from a separate little stall, and chow down to an excellent meal of noodles and pork, plus egg for Ed.   

The walk home is equally gorgeous with all the buildings lit up around the harbor, and it is a perfect ending to a really fun day (it would have been a perfect day had the weather cooperated more – but as you have seen in the photos, we are equipped!).