Kamakura Weekend

I had planned to go to Kyoto for one day this weekend, but the weather was so unsettled and the price of the ticket so expensive I decided to return to one of my nearby old haunts- Kamakura. The last time I was here was more than 5 years ago and it turned out the my memory was flawed but close enough to help me find where I wanted to go. 5 years ago I bought a really cheap camera and took some pictures of my trip. The results were frustrating to say the least. This time I vowed to retrace my steps and retake some of the pictures.

On Saturday I found my way down to Hase and the statue of the Big Bhuda- the second largest in Japan. After a few snaps I headed up the street for what I thought was the same walk I had done many years ago to a temple up the hill that had a raised garden. I began to climb steps at the side of a tunnel. It all looked promising, but I was totally wrong. I ended up on a hiking trail. Well, in fact I missed the hiking trail at first and ended up at a dead end at the top of hill.

Japanese people are very helpful to foreigners and before I knew it I was being guided back down the hill to a halfway point where the hiking trail had forked and sent on my way. I didn't really want to go hiking but my guide had determined that this was my destiny for the day so I struck out over the hills back towards the main station of Kamkura.

It was very pleasant, and very muddy. The heavy rain of the last couple of days had turned the paths into streams and so it was that about halfway round I fell flat on my back. Pride bruised as much a body I got up, cursed and pressed on now feeling quite tired (they jetlag never having quite left me). Halfway round I rejoiced in finding a cafe in the hills that served a local beer and I
spent a good while there resting.

The journey on from there was quite easy, now my muscles had recovered a little and I made it down to the stations and then on to the beach to watch the surfers doing their thing. I think Santa Cruz has somewhat better surf.

Having failed to find the garden I was looking for on Saturday I headed back to Kamakura today to try and find it. There was a big temple on the other side of the tracks that I was sure must be it. I headed there to find it completely unfamiliar but pretty nonetheless. It is the place where folk marry and I saw several wedding ceremonies taking place.

I left the temple complex by a side entrance which took me a little further up the road. Was this the road to the temple with the garden in the clouds I had gone to some many years ago? I looked kind of like it, but there weren't all the restaurants I remembered at the side of the road. Still there was a temple on this road and the name sounded familiar- Kencho-Ji so I started walking.

Kamakura used to be the capital of Japan around 1250AD. Why? Because it is surrounded by hills and was very difficult to visit if you were (as it were) an unwanted visitor. It has 5 gates that were passes in the old days and my walk to the Kencho-Ji temple took me up and through one of these gates (represented as a long concrete archway over the road) .

On reaching the other side of the gate things started to fall into place. Kencho-Ji temple was at the top of hill which lead down to Kit-Kamakura station and from the map that looked much more like the station I come from all those years ago.

I was right! Kencho-Ji was indeed the Zen temple I had visited before and when I arrived I was treated to a musical performance of drumming and bells that I found most enjoyable.

The climb up the hill to the temple at the top was considerably less hard than my hiking experience the day before. I made it to the top with relative ease but was not rewarded with the view of Mount Fujii as the guide signage suggested. Alas it was too cloudy.

As you can see from my enthusiastic snapping, I was really struck by the notion of little winged creatures telling the unworthy to go back down the hill from the temple. I was also struck by the irony of how they looked to westerners from the back- Angelic, and was reminded of the Angel that looked out upon the wasteland that was Dresden after the firestorm.




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