We arrived in Kamakura without a definite plan for the day. So we decided just to walk from the train station to the beach. We wanted to walk in the sand along the Pacific Ocean, and this cloudy day was perfect for that.
The local fishing boats were already back on the shore for the day.
There were lots of windsurfers far from the shore, with stand-up paddlers and surfers closer to us. It was a nice, quiet respite from the crowds of Tokyo.
Snack of the day, bought from another street-side vendor, is some form of chocolate chip bread. It tastes like a cross between angel food cake and bread--both things that Mark likes a lot. It was pleasantly sweet, but probably wouldn't be considered a dessert by American sweet tooth standards. There were only Japanese signs at the bakery, so we have no idea what it is called.
While we walked downtown, we saw the first (and only) RV of our entire trip. It was a tiny motor home, necessary to travel successfully on Japan's tiny roads. After a month away from home, we can certainly tell that RVing is not as popular here as it is in the USA.
We are headed out of town and into the mountains to find the city's most famous landmark--Kotokuin Temple--home of the great Buddha statue.
Second in size only to the one we saw our first day in Nara, this 36 foot statue was cast in 1252. It has outlasted its wooden temple that surrounded it, so it is now out in the open.
Denisa had read about the Daibutsu hiking trail that was supposed to be nearby, so we climbed up over 200 steps to find ourselves on a ridge of the mountains surrounding Kamakura. The trees were huge, with equally large root systems that help them cling to the top of the mountain.
Another hiker offered to take a picture of us together, and we gladly accepted. We have very few of these pictures because we don't know how to ask for them. So we are always happy when someone just offers.
We needed to get to town and the train station, so Mark improvised another of his famous loop tours that took us through the jungle and down the mountain. It was a steep, grassy hike, but we were glad to find one of those shrines in the jungle and its trail back to town.
After visiting so many Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, we haven't seen a single Christian store or souvenir shop to buy a cross from Japan. We have purchased a cross from each country we have traveled to, but we thought we might be stumped here. We recognize that we are coming to the end of our time in Japan and we still haven't located a cross to take home from this country. We knew that there were 65 Buddhist temples and 19 Shinto shrines in Kamakura and in the surrounding hills, and so we didn't get our hopes up for finding one today. At different locations in Japan we have asked about a place to buy a cross, and we have just been met with blank stares. But the ladies at the Kamakura visitors' center gave us such good guidance on a restaurant to eat fresh shrimp for lunch, we decided to ask them for advice about buying a cross. Their first response was the usual blank stare. But then they started chattering in Japanese, and one got on the phone. The woman with the best English skills explained they had called the only Christian church in town. Their little church store was closed today, but they would open it and meet us right now. We walked quickly, and when we opened the door of the adjacent church we were greeted by the sound of their choir practicing for the Christmas program. The strains of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" have never been so sweet to us! We finally got to make our souvenir purchase--a clay cross made in Japan.
We stopped by a local shop for a very un-local snack. This French caramel crepe topped off our successful shopping trip in Kamakura!
Denisa wanted a picture with this particularly friendly-looking lion that we found under the Torii gate in downtown. We truly felt smiled-upon today!
We caught the train back to Tokyo, glad to have an hour-long relaxing ride and nap back to the city. It got cloudy this afternoon, and it looks like the predicted rain is finally going to find us. Mark spent a good part of his evening looking for a place to go to church on Sunday morning in Tokyo. In a city of 37 million people, there has to be a few Christian churches. This is the largest urban area population in the world, but Mark found only 9 churches with web sites--and only one was in English. We were disappointed that this church's English services were on Sunday afternoon and evening--after the time we would have to leave the city. So we guess that our exposure to "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" will have to be our church time for this week.
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