Enoshima and Kamakura and me

Prior to visiting the Daibutsu and Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu in Kamakura I visited the nearby island of Enoshima which is part of the city of Fujisawa. Benzaiten, the goddess of music and entertainment, is enshrined on the island. The island is the scene of the Enoshima Engi, a history of the shrines on Enoshima written by the Japanese Buddhist monk Kōkei in 1047 AD. Once again, I apologize for the small number of photos. I was carrying my 2 year-old and watching my 4 year-old at the time. I was sweating like crazy by the time I reached the top of those stairs while carrying my heavy bag of rice. :)

Leading up to the stair to the shrine was a narrow road full of tourists. Shops lined both sides of the very narrow road. Although the road seemed to be for strolling tourists, typical of Japan it was actually a regular road used by small vehicles and motor bikes. So I had to be extra careful watching after my two boys so they wouldn't step in front of a motorbike or mini-truck.

Ok, I normally don't like to post pictures of myself on the web but here I am in front of Daibutsu. Yes, the orange hat does not match the red shirt but oh well.

Here comes our train. This is at the station just down the street from Daibutsu. We had to battle ten thousand school kids to get to the station, get our tickets and get on the damn train. And the kids did not have any issue with pushing me out of the way to get on the train. But I didn't give ground. :)

On the way home from Kamakura we stopped in Yokohama Chinatown and had some delicious Chinese food. Here is one of the small side streets in Chinatown.