I am sure you can guess from the title where we went today.... So we started off at 8 am in the morning (or something around that time...in the very un-japanese fashion) and got the train to Kamakura. On the way an older man from a hiking group started chatting to Anthony and me. He was ace! His english was almost non-existent yet we still had a conversation of sorts! It was pretty cool, his leader gave us sweets too, as the new tomodachi's of the guy.
We started off by going to the Hokokuji temple, which had a beautiful bamboo forrest behind it. It felt like something out of house of flying daggers..it's amazing how high and stable bamboo is! You know that the Chinese developed some very exquisite torturing devices using bamboo? They would for example feed the victim fresh bamboo shoots and force water down him. the bamboo would then continue to grow inside him and eventually pierce through him/her. We are a cruel species.
Anyway! Then we went off to Jomyoji which I think is where we saw a whole load of little girls in kimonos. Apparently its a sort of right of passage for a little girl of a certain age to dress up in her kimono (as well as have her hair and make up done) and go to the shrine. They looked stunning. I just wanted to take them home with me. Japanese children are so beautiful!!!!
There was a lot of walking involved today, up hill, down hill, through the Japanese suburbs...along roads. It was interesting to see how people lived. the countryside was awesome too, its fantastic how many different shades of green exist in nature!
The Zeniaraibenzaiten temple was really cool. It was sort of half in a cave, hidden away. But once you were inside it was like a little self sufficient village...just for prayer though (and buying various souvenirs). One could wash their money there (literally with water) and then according to the belief you would get it back 2 fold? or 5 fold? You could dry it in the incense pot afterwards. In all the little rivers we saw, there always were lots of koi carp! it was mesmerising to watch them especially the golden/orange coloured ones, which normally you would see in expensive aquariums or pictures.
At one of the temples we managed to observe ANOTHER wedding! (That's 3 in less than two weeks!). This time we actually got to watch the more of the procedure though! Like the drinking of the sake, the playing of the strange sounding instruments and the monks (?) blessing the ceremony. I have been told that, because the wedding kimono is so thick, it is the reason why so many couples marry in autumn time. The ones that want a western wedding (showing off a bit more flesh and cleavage) marry in the summer.
Lastly we got to Daibutsu, where the famous big Buddha resides! That was pretty exciting, considering I had seen pictures of him when I was very very young in one of my mums Japan story books. So it was surreal to actually be standing in front of him. It was a little weird that you could go inside him though, and if you walked around the back he actually had windows in his head. That took the magic away a bit.
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