Thursday, April 26, 2012

My Dad's Visit - part 2

On Monday, April 2nd we woke up early again so that we could catch a train to Kamakura (about an hour south of Tokyo).  Anne loves Kamakura so she was our tour guide and showed us some of the major sights.  Kamakura has many Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines and while it was never a capital of Japan (like Kyoto was) it had nearly as much power as one during the Kamakura Period (1185 CE –1333 CE).  Upon arrival at the station we got bus passes for the day and our first stop was Kotoku-in, a Buddhist temple with the third-oldest daibutsu (large statue of Buddha) in Japan; the oldest is only 2.75 meters (9 ft) tall and is located inside the Hoko temple in Nara, the second-oldest is located inside the Todai temple also in Nara.  The statue we saw was outside though so I think it must appear more impressive. 

The bronze statue was made in 1252 CE and has a height of 13.35 meters (43.8 ft).  It has survived numerous earthquakes, storms, and even a tsunami (several hundred years ago) but is still in good condition thanks to several restorations. 

For 20 yen we were able to go inside the statue; it was then possible to see all of the plates that were welded together to create the whole figure.  We also saw some people rubbing the inside of the statue's belly for good luck.  Rubbing any Buddha statue's belly is good luck but I wonder if it's extra lucky to rub the inside... ha ha. 

After visiting the giant Buddha we went to the Hasedera temple down the road.  The temple buildings are on the side of a hill and once one climbs high enough there is an observation platform from which the Pacific Ocean and a large chunk of Kamakura city is visible.

This is one of the temple buildings which I thought was nice since it was next to a koi fish pond and flowering bushes.

Down near Tokyo there were definitely more flowers in bloom.  I think this is a magnolia tree but I don't know for sure.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of these cute statues.  Many of the statues at the temple are of Jizo, the guardian deity of children. 

Further inside Hasedera temple there are several places where wooden plaques can be hung.  People can buy a plaque, write their prayer on it, and leave it hanging with the other prayers.  It is believed that your prayers are more likely to be answered if you leave them at the temple.  It reminded me a bit of leaving a lit prayer candle at a church.

Usually people write prayers about more serious things like "Please, let me and my husband have a baby" but there were some other, more humorous ones as well like the one above asking for Mariners tickets (the Mariners had their first games of the season in Japan and the games corresponded with our visit to Tokyo).  I think I saw another plaque where someone (presumably a kid) was asking for Pokemon to come to the real world.

Tucked away behind the temple was a cave important to the Shinto religion (we could tell that we were entering a Shinto area due to the red torii, see an example below).  The cave contained many statues and burning candles that people had placed to bring good fortune.

A torii is a divine gateway which my dad claims looks like the 'pi' symbol.  This one led down one of the sakura tree-lined main streets in Kamakura.

We had some really good Korean food for lunch.  I think the meat I ate was some of the best meat I've ever had in my entire life.  I asked them what kind of sauce they used but they just told me, "meat sauce"... (they probably didn't want to give away their secret recipe).  After that we went to one of the main Shinto shrines in the area, Tsurugaoka Hachimangu.  The shrine is really an impressive sight, especially if one walks down the long, straight road in front of it.  There is a structure filled with barrels of sacred sake from all over to the left of the path and a wide stone staircase leads to the main building.  I got an omikuji (strip of paper that tells your fortune for the year) at the shrine.  According to my fortune (from what I can translate) I'll have good luck!

After doing some souvenir shopping and sampling some sweet potato ice cream (which was AMAZING), we headed back to our hotel in Shinjuku.  Anne decided that she wanted to return home sooner rather than later so she packed up and caught the shinkansen back to Miyagi.

I thought that I'd be able to wrap everything up with this post but I guess not.  So... look forward to the conclusion!

Also, this is just a side-note, but if you look at a Google map location of Kamakura you may see symbols that look like inverted and rotated swastikas, but that's just the map symbol for a Buddhist temple (and has been since at least the Middle Ages).

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