After a sleep we were ready to get out to explore Japan and if you have ever been to Japan you know that the only way to start a day in Japan is to visit a convience store. We needed to withdraw money so we decided to go to 7/11. Withdrawing money was a breeze and then it was time to choose what we were getting. Anthony got another Melon pan and a hot coffee. I just got a hot tea.
We then started our journey for today as we are headed to Kamakura. Kamakura is a beach side town about an hour from Tokyo. We had forgotten that in winter Japan heats it train seats so our legs were extremely warm after our hour train ride.
We arrived at Kamakura station and jumped on a bus to head out towards Hokokuji temple which was my number one priority to visit today. It was really easy to navigate where to get off the bus and in about 10 minutes we had made it to the start of the temples street. We walked up through this beautiful garden which had heaps of stone statues. This temple is also known a the bamboo temple as it has a huge grove on bamboo in its gardens. We paid our entry and a little extra for some matcha which you get in the garden and then headed in to explore the grove and temple grounds.
The bamboo grove was no only absolutey stunning but there was hardly anyone there. The bamboo is also so well looked after and loved and has no graffiti etched into it like some of the ones in Australia. We wandered around in the quiet grove and just took in the peace and tranquility.
At the end of the bamboo grove is an area where you can sit and look out over the grove while you are given a freshly made matcha tea. There are little table and seats looking over the bamboo. The matcha is freshly ground and made for you right there. It was delicious and such a relaxing treat.
We decided to walk back along the river to the shopping street as it was only 2km. We ended up coming across the oldest shrine in Kamakura Sugimoto-dera which apparently predates the Kamakura period (1185–1333). We went in for a look and it was really pretty. It also had some of the most beautiful autumn leaves still on trees.
After that brief stopover we continued walking and found the huge main temple of kamakura Tsurugaoka Hachimangu. It has this cool lake and we spent so much time watching the pigeons and seagulls fly and around and attempt to land on people. It was very funny. I think we probably spent about an hour at the lake watching the birds. We went and got another shrine stamp at the temple and then headed to get some late lunch. Yes we sat at the birds for ages but it was so lovely in the winter sun.
For lunch we found an amazing tempura soba place. There was no english on the signs or the menu so I used my very limited japanese to attempt to work out what to order. Luckily the first few lessons on duolingo focus on food. We ended up with a very delicious meal and free tea!
We had one more thing to do today which was to get to the Great Buddha so we walked 1.5km down the main street and back to the station to catch a bus. Before we knew it we were at the Buddha. It was pretty big but nowhere near as large as the one we saw in Hong Kong. We took some photos looked at merch and then we headed back to the station to head back to Tokyo.
It took ages to get back to Tokyo on very crowded trains but as we got off the station we found a dessert fish shop so we got one of them. The only other thing we did tonight was to head to Anthony’s favourite restaurant in Japan. Go Go Curry! It has been such an amazing day!
