Kamakura

We took a day trip to Kamakura in Kanagawa Prefecture, which is located south-south-west of Tokyo. It's not a big city, but a historically important place. It was a former de facto capital of Japan as the seat of the Shogunate and of the Regency duinrg Kamakura Period (1185-1333). And now it's one of the popular sightseeing destinations.

There are many historically significant Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines in Kamakura. Most famous of all are, I think, Tsurugaoka Hachimangū (Shinto shrine) and the Great Buddha. Now, there are a lot of shops, cafes and restaurants around there.

Unfortunately it was a rainy day, but it was busy with people as usual as a tourist site. I think it was the third time to visit there. We walked through a shopping street, headed to Tsurugaoka Hachimangū first.

This shrine never gets old. It has great dignity.

A Japanese wedding ceremony was held there. They were an international couple like us. It reminded me of our simple wedding, which finished in about '10 minutes'. Luckly we could listen to rare Shinto live music.

There was a huge 800-1,000-year-old ginkgo tree as a symbol of Tsurugaoka Hachimangū. But it fell down by strong wind on 10 March, 2010. I had completely forgotten about this news, but this foot of a tree was trigger recall.

After we browsed some shops and had a break at a cafe, we went to see the Great Buddha by bus.

Gee, a giant Buddha and a giant sandals... Do you know that you can get inside the Buddha by paying 20 yen? Nothing really inside though...

On a way back to the station, we walked around and enjoyed window shopping. There are a lot of high spots in Kamakura, but we enjoyed our day trip.