Monday, January 16, 2024

• Early start this morning, heading on a daytrip out of Tokyo to Kamakura, around an hour away.
• Started at a Tully’s Coffee for the morning go-go juice.

• (Our best guess is that it means that flowers cover the branches, but can’t tell if clever pun or Engrish!)
• On our way to the Kamakura Diabutsu (giant Buddha), we stopped at a small craft store and picked up a couple of wooden masks (out of the hundreds the super friendly owner had on his walls for sale).

• Also notable, we saw more golden bois on our way to Kamakura than we had all trip until now!

• Overall, the walk from the station to the Daibutsu was really lovely – amazing weather, a nice small town, just beautiful.

• The Kamakura Daibutsu really is something else, especially given it’s open to the sky! The lack of a ceiling can alternatively make it look much larger than it seems like it should be, but also be deceptively small without a point of reference to easily compare it to. It’s a really cool optical illusion walking around and seeing it from different perspectives! Some shots to illustrate (including one with MBW for scale)

• For ¥50, you can actually go inside the statute (which is hollow) to have a look around – not sure what I expected, but worth ¥50 to find out!

• There was also some groups of schoolchildren roaming around the area completing a school assignment, which was interviewing foreigners in English about Kamakura. We’d previously contributed to similar assignments on previous trips around Hiroshima, and answering questions from a Western perspective about Kamakura was a lot less stressful than answering questions about Hiroshima!
• Unfortunately, the SN details the kids gave us to send photos to didn’t work, so hopefully someone sees this photo – it was lovely to meet you all!

• The park around the Daibutsu is also worth an explore, it’s very well constructed and serene.

• On our way back to the station, we stopped at a local place to have a cold drink and try their speciality dessert – mochi with roasted soybean powder. Very tasty!

• On our way back, we stopped around the Tokyo Skytree so MBW could visit a Kyototo specialty store for a handbag she had her eye on.
• We also found a Sizzler, which was fun, as the last Sizzler in our local area had closed down for good a few months before. Famous for their cheesy toast.

• Stopped at the Skytree foodcourt for a Chinese meal – I had some omurice and MBW had ginormous gyoza. Gyoza was quietly becoming the MVP food of this trip.

• Finally, we had another little walk around Shibuya before heading back to the hotel, visiting the Tsutaya at the Scramble Crossing (which was closed for renovations), Tower Records, Kinokunia, the Capcom store, the Nintendo Store and Pokemon Centre, and Bic Camera.