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| View of Engakuji |
Today I finally slept well. At 8 am I still didn’t feel like crawling out of bed! Had to, though – Seiichi was due home at 9, and we had to clean up a bit before his return. I managed to squeeze one more essay – and guess what? This was the best one yet! Finally! After Seiichi came back, we went out for breakfast, had some nice chats and said bye.
Now off for a day trip! We’re going to Kamakura, a small town an hour away from Tokyo, filled with 12th Century temples. And filled it was, we saw a mere couple temple groups, and there are dozens here! The first one we saw, Engakuji, was a monastery. Yes, the hundred steps up – huge gate – huge bell – multiple temples, cemeteries and gardens – a path winding up higher and higher towards the final shrine – type place. Awesome!
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| On a path to Enlightenment |
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| Kamakura has been taken over by bears |
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| That’s a lot of vending machines… |
But the second one was even better. Kenchoji similar is an active Zen monastery, though of course there is no public access to where the monks stay. The journey started off similar: gate, temples, shrines, but at the end there was an amazing bonus. The last shrine was on the slope of a hill behind the monastery. A long path through a bamboo forest. A zigzag of old stone stairs. Sculptures of warriors covering the last slope before the shrine. The shrine itself, with its back to the cliff. I felt like I should be given a long stick and a couple buckets filled up to the rims with water before I go up. I wasn’t, so I ran all the way. And then it turned out that another five minutes up an even more winding, more narrow stairs lot of stairs, there was a viewing platform. Some more running rewarded me with a great view and a much needed influx of endorphins. Yay!
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| Eating a candied octopus. Very hard beast! |
After a quick lunch, we made it to the biggest, most famous temple – the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu. The colours! The carvings! Fantastic, though personally I preferred the more intimate feel of the monasteries. This place was filled with people, and interestingly, many children in kimonos. I`m not sure what kind of Shinto ritual they were engaged in, but they looked wonderful.
The next stop was the Kotokuin Temple with the Daibutsu Buddha, the second largest figure of Buddha in Japan. And it was huge! Even more interestingly, it’s a walk-in-Buddha, very accommodating, I think more than 20 people fit in quite comfortably.
A quick reflection. It’s refreshing to see two religions coexisting peacefully for centuries, with no religious wars or even particularly big conflicts. Moreover, this includes multiple distinct sects within Buddhism. Imagine that in Europe! No wonder the Japanese said a polite ‘no’ to Christian missionaries: ‘we don’t need your mess here!’
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| Buddha’s insides |
Armed with some yummy ice cream (today’s flavours: sweet potato and almond jelly), we went towards the beach. It was good to feel the Pacific Ocean with me feet again – turns out it doesn’t feel much different than on the Southern hemisphere. We found some huge shells, crossed a river delta and almost saw the sunset – a whole day of perfect blue sky, and now the clouds decided to start gathering up on the West horizon. Ah well. Back on the train to Tokyo now, will meet our new host soon.
Guillaume turned out to be a cool French guy who works for Sony and got sent to Japan for a year to do some team leading. His place is at least triple the size of Seiichi’s, though he lives a bit further away from the centre. After dumping our luggage we went out to eat something – this time from a vending machine bar. No waiters, before the entrance there is a vending machine, you choose your dish, pay and get a ticket. Give the ticket to the bar staff, get your food. Some awesome ramen today.
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| Pachinko. Sad. |
Guillaume isn’t particularly happy with his job, says he’s expected to work 10 hours a day, has to stay late even on Fridays. He says that the Japanese live to work, have no lives, are just ants in suits. Work all day, do something mindless until day ends, sleep, work all day… He took us to a pachinko – a games centre where hundreds of people sit and play mindless, automatic and extremely noisy fruit machine-type arcades… Eva said that was one of the most depressing things she ever saw.
Now off for a day trip! We’re going to Kamakura, a small town an hour away from Tokyo, filled with 12th Century temples. And filled it was, we saw a mere couple temple groups, and there are dozens here! The first one we saw, Engakuji, was a monastery. Yes, the hundred steps up – huge gate – huge bell – multiple temples, cemeteries and gardens – a path winding up higher and higher towards the final shrine – type place. Awesome!
After a quick lunch, we made it to the biggest, most famous temple – the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu. The colours! The carvings! Fantastic, though personally I preferred the more intimate feel of the monasteries. This place was filled with people, and interestingly, many children in kimonos. I`m not sure what kind of Shinto ritual they were engaged in, but they looked wonderful.
The next stop was the Kotokuin Temple with the Daibutsu Buddha, the second largest figure of Buddha in Japan. And it was huge! Even more interestingly, it’s a walk-in-Buddha, very accommodating, I think more than 20 people fit in quite comfortably.
Guillaume turned out to be a cool French guy who works for Sony and got sent to Japan for a year to do some team leading. His place is at least triple the size of Seiichi’s, though he lives a bit further away from the centre. After dumping our luggage we went out to eat something – this time from a vending machine bar. No waiters, before the entrance there is a vending machine, you choose your dish, pay and get a ticket. Give the ticket to the bar staff, get your food. Some awesome ramen today.
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