Saturday, May 25, 2002
So a long entry today: first Kamakura (last Monday). This was cool - basically an old town peppered with loads of vey old temples and shrines etc. less than an hour from Tokyo station. We only saw the East half of the town during the afternoon that we were there, but that included the largest temple in the town, with one building of about 700 years old, dwarfed by a giant ginko tree which is reputed to be even older...the more devout visitors here were tossing coins into a hopper, clapping and muttering prayers. The grounds of the temple are laid out very strictly and include two huge lilyponds, teeming with massive, fat carp and some turtles...there were loads of schoolkids around this whole area so after we ate our bento we headed off through the back streets and found some more peaceful places. We were able to go into one of the temples (shoes off for walking on the tatami mats) for only 100 yen (55p/75 cents) which was really interesting....lots of statues and incense burning, and a couple of old monks making stuff.
We also walked up a wooded hill and found some scarey cave shrines in the hillside, still visited regularly by the look of the flowers and food offerings (anything from an orange to a can of soda!) that were left there!
Saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time from the grey (volcanic sand?) beach just before getting dinner at Freshness Burger "Coffee, burgers (cake)". Cool place, will go back soon for the West side (giant buddha, more temples and the Amish Restaurant).
Had a good night out last night - a leaving do for a woman from my school and her husband from another school, in a private room. Lots of people from the different places came, including some students(!) and Japanese staff. The female staff for some reason had been named Rachel Jenkins and Sara Evans - real name Satomi. We also met a Kate...and were given our own Japanese names. I'll tell you them next time, have forgotten them now. So anyway, we spent a while there and had our first karaoke experience (My Way anyone?!) before heading off sharpish when the room charge started going up steeply...if you exceed 2 hours, 500 yen each for the next half hour including a drink, then after that 2000 yen each for another half hour (no drink), then 10,000 yen for the group after that...!
That's all for now, back into Tokyo tomorrow so should have some more stories to tell soon.
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