I just returned from Japan today and I am dead tired but I had a great time. One of the highlights was a day in Kamakura last Thursday. We lucked out because the weather was ecellent. We visited Enoshima, Daibutsu, andTsurugaoka Hachiman-gu. Below are some of the photos I took. I apologize for the quality of the photos. I am not a very good photographer but also it's not too easy taking photos when you are holding or chasing after a 2 year old.
Daibutsu was as amazing as I thought it would be. The meditative Daibutsu is a very moving figure and I could feel that when I stood at the base of the giant Buddha. One slight downside of the Daibutsu was that the area was swarming with literally thousands of school kids. THOUSANDS. It made it difficult to walk along the side walk, purchase train tickets, or enter the train while carrying a two year old.
Below are a couple of photos from Hachiman-gu. I will post some more later but I wanted to post these two because of the new growths coming from the old stump from the famous gingko tree that fell earlier this year. See my March post of the story behind the famous tree and the sad demise of the old tree. But the good news is that new growths are sprouting from the old trunk as you can see below so there is hope that one day the tree will resurrect itself.
I will post some photos of Enoshima later.
Yup, it is pretty amazing. Withstood a tidal wave, didn't it?
ReplyDeleteYeah, amazing the wave reached all the way up there.
ReplyDeletehi..nice to see to your blog..nice to meet you also...do visit my blog back..tq
ReplyDeleteHehehe... had to laugh when I read about the 2yo camera technique. Know the feeling. Definitely difficult unless there's two of you to do it; one taking the photo, the other running interference.
ReplyDeleteExcept that we also had a four year old we had to chase around also.
ReplyDeleteKamakura is indeed a very nice place to visit ... I think I have been there 3 or 4 times already since I got here about 2.5 years ago.
ReplyDeleteVery convenient to get to from the Tokyo area .. BTW, did you get a chance to visit Tokyo during this trip?
Not Tokyo but I did go to Yokohama Chinatown and had some great food.
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Huh. You were in Kamakura and Enoshima. I go to Kamakura everyday! Of course, I live there :)
ReplyDeleteJay, you are one lucky guy. Kamakura is a beautiful place. I definitely want to return again someday.
ReplyDeleteI was in Kamakura last week and skipped hachimangu this time, now I am bumping my head on the wall after seeing your post, amazing that the old ginkgo is growing again, so bad I missed it.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised with the amount of growth as well. I wonder if it will succeed. I will have to return in a few years to see the progress.
ReplyDelete