day 6 in japan
hey, you've almost made it through the whole trip! just indulge me a little more, and i'll stop taking up so much space on your friends page...
i wake up to the bright sunshine in our kamakura inn room. i feel like its somewhat late in the day, so i check the watch only to see that its 6am--it ain't called "land of the rising sun" for nothing...anyway, this is the only real day of the week that we're not on a time-specific deadline, so we just lay around for a few hours, and then eventually pack our bags and go. kamakura is a comparatively small town after you've been through tokyo & yokohama (#1 & #2 biggest cities in japan), and the vibe is infectious. we go to a mr. donut for breakfast (perhaps the biggest japanese doughnut/coffee franchise--sato tells me she'll take me to non-chain stores next time) and i have a butter-crunch doughnut (cake doughnut with bits of english toffee stuck all over it) and some japanese-type thing that was a couple of small soft munchkin-like things with powder covering them. it was kind of cinnamon-y tasting, although sato thinks it was some kind of vegetable. i was planning on having plain coffee with this, but they had something on the menu which was coffee-flavored ice that you pour milk over to drink--sounded interesting so i had that. as we left, we saw a kentucky fried chicken next door to us--i don't know what it is with kfc over here, but its the predominant american fast food restaurant i've located. not only that, but they have a likeness of col. sanders himself greeting you at the entrance! now _that_ i'd never seen before...i took a picture of him and sato, with sato standing in such a way that it made it look like harlan was fondling one of her breasts, and we suddenly exited from 21st century consumerism to 13th century buddhism...
kamakura was the old capital of japan from around the 1100s to the 1300s. and during that timeframe, the shoguns commanded many temples to be built, and a lot of them are still standing today. this was the purpose of the visit to kamakura, and doughnuts and fried chicken aside, its a town from an ancient time. the snappily-dressed tokyoites are gone, and the tickettakers at the trains are manual--our first area was visit isn't really a temple, but the daibatsu.
the daibatsu is a 40-foot tall buddha that was constructed in the 1200s. sato tells me that it was gold, but 700+ years have washed it away although you can still see a gold sparkle in the right cheek. i took several pictures of it, with the best ones being the ones that had people in it--you see just how immense in comparison the daibatsu is. its actually hollow inside, and for 20 yen we step in to see what was intended as an earthquake shelter. and hey, its still standing after all these years with no apparent damage to it, so there were some smart designers here...while we're here, a flock of schoolchildren descend upon the place--i'm sure this place is a perfect field trip for history students--as we're walking out of the buddha, a 5 or 6-year old japanese girl is walking in--in passing me, she casually says "hello" which caught me off-guard! one of the few english statements i've heard directed at me on the whole trip! we wander around, and i take a picture of some kids who are enamored at a squirrel-sighting, apparently the first time they've ever seen one before...we look at the gift shop (surprised to see they sell asahi beer there, but i have to remind myself i'm not in the bible belt) and then move on to hasedura.
hasedura is a beautiful temple on a mountainside, with a small brook running through it and numerous monuments. however, sato explains that the purpose of the temple is to commemorate the lost babies in the world--if a potential mother suffered a miscarriage or had to perform an abortion, she goes to hasedura and places a small statue of a baby among the area in memory of the child that wasn't brought into the world--so there's more than a tinge of melancholia to the place. at the top of the mountain you have the main temple area, along with a great view of kamakura rooftops and the nearby sea. i managed to get a really good picture of the main temple with the japanese flag waving nearby (i've always loved that flag), and a shot of bamboo trees which i had to struggle to get but everybody who's seen the pictures likes that one (ego-booster). we leave, and go to a nearby restaurant, which i later discovered is in my "rough guide to japan" book--its a small take-your-shoes-off-eat-on-the-floor place, where we grill our own food at the table. we order okonomiyaki (always described as pancakes, but thats just due to batter--its mixed in with vegetables and such, an octopus-less version of that tokiyaki i had on saturday) and something else i don't recall the name of. i preferred the latter, which surprised sato since she said it ranked #3 on the list of japanese cuisine that foreigners find difficult to eat...we leave and get on the train to go to another area--lots of children on the train, and one looks at me and i smile. she quickly looks away, and then i hear her talking and then these other girls quickly look at me and glance away--sato tells me they're saying "look, there's a handsome foreigner on the train!" i can't help but blush at this news...and i'm betting that if geebs is reading this far, he'll make a particular response to this...
our next stop is engaku-ju, which is a brilliant zen buddhist temple & my favorite of the ones we visited. its home to numerous japanese national treasures, including a tree thats about 1200 years old and has a pink exterior in places--you could hear the mountain noises all around as you went through the area, and to get to the uppermost point you climb up a flight of 140 steps to get a breathtaking view of the mountains around. i took some pictures but they don't begin to do justice...also, as a side note, its during the climbing of these stairs that i finally realize why its difficult to climb steps here--japanese feet are usually much smaller than mine, and the steps are designed the way they are because they don't imagine too many size 12s climbing up them--steps aren't usually a problem for me, but they were at that time...
to be honest, at this point the temples start to blur. its not because they were subpar, but simply because when you spend one day seeing so many of these that share similar characteristics, its difficult to remember the merits of each. we visited 3 more afterward--the most striking thing from the first was a 5-foot squirrel monument with large testicles. sato tells me that the size of his balls represent good fortune, and by rubbing them you will be blessed with money (makes sense to me)...the second temple had some restricted areas that were under repair, but we happened to be there at the time they had their evening prayer. the bells rang and they chanted in unison--to be honest i felt like this was something i shouldn't be witnessing, but there was a sign saying it was okay as long as you didn't make fun of the festivities--it was pretty mesmerizing...and the third temple had some spectacular views, including many japanese bridges and a long pathway that extended to the temple, which was adorned with cherry blossoms just a few weeks before (the cherry blossoms had just left tokyo when i arrived, although they had moved up north). my rough guide told me that a shogun had been murdered on the steps leading up to the temple about 750 years ago...and by this time, evening was setting and we bid kamakura adieu...
sato's mom picked us up at the station again & took us back to their place. on the way, we stopped to see one of her doctors who had saved her life years ago (she had a back pain so severe she wasn't able to walk, but under his supervision she recovered)--he's also a judo instructor, and was a pretty big guy--he told me to look into judo in atlanta, but you readers should know how effective that'd be for me...once we got back, we sat around momentarily and then left for a ramen restaurant, which was really fun--we got filled up, came back, and then sato's father and i left for a public bath...
the one reservation most of my friends had about my trip was the fact that i was going to take a public bath--but why not? if i want to live the japanese life for a few days, the least i could do was go to this since its very much a part of the culture. and as for being naked, its not like its any different from when i had to go to a group shower in the freshman dorms at ga tech--after all, its not like these people want to check me out any more than i want to check them out--although being an american could up the ante on being stared at, but as it turned out hardly anybody was there when we showed up. we paid, and then took our clothes off and put them in a locker--i had a difficult time getting my shoes to fit...they give you a cloth, big enough to cover your front but there's nothing you can do about your ass--and with that we go inside...
i don't know how different it is for girls (and yes, this one was broken into male and female sections), but with guys there's a faucet at about knee-level with hot and cold water. you walk in with two buckets, like something you might wash a car with. you sit on one and use the other for your water. and the procedure i witnessed is different than anything i read, so pay attention! the first thing you do is wash your naughty bits. once you get them clean, you go to the preliminary bath area and get in the water--i had heard that it was much hotter than americans have ever experienced, which is true if you've never been in anything but bathwater, but if you've been in a jacuzzi there's really no difference. you wear the cloth on top of your head so that it doesn't get in the water, and then after you've been in it for awhile you get out, go back to the washing area, and proceed to bathe yourself up. after you've done it for awhile, you rinse yourself off thoroughly, and then you can move to the final bath area. a jacuzzi always feels really nice, but there's something extra to it when you've just bathed--it does feel very relaxing. and thats basically it--you get out--dry off, and then put your clothes on again--my skin was bright red for awhile, and the rather cool yokohama evening felt just right as we went outside and waited for sato's mom to pick us up.
we came back and had some beer and snacks--two things the japanese love to participate in are public baths and drinking. as for when you drink, you fill the other person's glass, not yours. and once you drink more than half of yours, they proceed to refill to the top. if you're finished drinking, you have to leave over half of your drink--so you can see why its pretty easy to get drunk over there...we saw a little bit of a baseball game on tv, which was insane--the announcers talk very fast-paced with no pauses, while the crowd roars--if you don't know any better, you'd think you're hearing a crucial moment in a basketball game, but thats just the way they are about baseball over there--sato tells me that a sportscaster will get fired if he's silent for more than a couple of seconds...we then go to visit some of her neighbors, who are extremely nice. its a family of four, mother father and two college-aged kids, son and daughter. they have a few presents for sato, and i get into a talk with the father who is also a record collector--he shows me his area, which is lined with about 2000 records, with 1960s american jazz being his primary interest. in particular, he's got about 140 miles davis albums (i think that even tops joe barkley's collection) and he's got weird russian pressings and things like that. really good stuff, and even though we can't really speak the same language we can still understand the names each of us rattle off--stan getz, pharoah sanders, sun ra, bud powell, etc. a nice surprise! we stay until late, and then as we come back sato's mom takes us to our hotel, a place very closeby, where we walk in and find out they've fitted us with twin beds! but we move the two of them together, and we settle in for our last night together...
i wake up to the bright sunshine in our kamakura inn room. i feel like its somewhat late in the day, so i check the watch only to see that its 6am--it ain't called "land of the rising sun" for nothing...anyway, this is the only real day of the week that we're not on a time-specific deadline, so we just lay around for a few hours, and then eventually pack our bags and go. kamakura is a comparatively small town after you've been through tokyo & yokohama (#1 & #2 biggest cities in japan), and the vibe is infectious. we go to a mr. donut for breakfast (perhaps the biggest japanese doughnut/coffee franchise--sato tells me she'll take me to non-chain stores next time) and i have a butter-crunch doughnut (cake doughnut with bits of english toffee stuck all over it) and some japanese-type thing that was a couple of small soft munchkin-like things with powder covering them. it was kind of cinnamon-y tasting, although sato thinks it was some kind of vegetable. i was planning on having plain coffee with this, but they had something on the menu which was coffee-flavored ice that you pour milk over to drink--sounded interesting so i had that. as we left, we saw a kentucky fried chicken next door to us--i don't know what it is with kfc over here, but its the predominant american fast food restaurant i've located. not only that, but they have a likeness of col. sanders himself greeting you at the entrance! now _that_ i'd never seen before...i took a picture of him and sato, with sato standing in such a way that it made it look like harlan was fondling one of her breasts, and we suddenly exited from 21st century consumerism to 13th century buddhism...
kamakura was the old capital of japan from around the 1100s to the 1300s. and during that timeframe, the shoguns commanded many temples to be built, and a lot of them are still standing today. this was the purpose of the visit to kamakura, and doughnuts and fried chicken aside, its a town from an ancient time. the snappily-dressed tokyoites are gone, and the tickettakers at the trains are manual--our first area was visit isn't really a temple, but the daibatsu.
the daibatsu is a 40-foot tall buddha that was constructed in the 1200s. sato tells me that it was gold, but 700+ years have washed it away although you can still see a gold sparkle in the right cheek. i took several pictures of it, with the best ones being the ones that had people in it--you see just how immense in comparison the daibatsu is. its actually hollow inside, and for 20 yen we step in to see what was intended as an earthquake shelter. and hey, its still standing after all these years with no apparent damage to it, so there were some smart designers here...while we're here, a flock of schoolchildren descend upon the place--i'm sure this place is a perfect field trip for history students--as we're walking out of the buddha, a 5 or 6-year old japanese girl is walking in--in passing me, she casually says "hello" which caught me off-guard! one of the few english statements i've heard directed at me on the whole trip! we wander around, and i take a picture of some kids who are enamored at a squirrel-sighting, apparently the first time they've ever seen one before...we look at the gift shop (surprised to see they sell asahi beer there, but i have to remind myself i'm not in the bible belt) and then move on to hasedura.
hasedura is a beautiful temple on a mountainside, with a small brook running through it and numerous monuments. however, sato explains that the purpose of the temple is to commemorate the lost babies in the world--if a potential mother suffered a miscarriage or had to perform an abortion, she goes to hasedura and places a small statue of a baby among the area in memory of the child that wasn't brought into the world--so there's more than a tinge of melancholia to the place. at the top of the mountain you have the main temple area, along with a great view of kamakura rooftops and the nearby sea. i managed to get a really good picture of the main temple with the japanese flag waving nearby (i've always loved that flag), and a shot of bamboo trees which i had to struggle to get but everybody who's seen the pictures likes that one (ego-booster). we leave, and go to a nearby restaurant, which i later discovered is in my "rough guide to japan" book--its a small take-your-shoes-off-eat-on-the-floor place, where we grill our own food at the table. we order okonomiyaki (always described as pancakes, but thats just due to batter--its mixed in with vegetables and such, an octopus-less version of that tokiyaki i had on saturday) and something else i don't recall the name of. i preferred the latter, which surprised sato since she said it ranked #3 on the list of japanese cuisine that foreigners find difficult to eat...we leave and get on the train to go to another area--lots of children on the train, and one looks at me and i smile. she quickly looks away, and then i hear her talking and then these other girls quickly look at me and glance away--sato tells me they're saying "look, there's a handsome foreigner on the train!" i can't help but blush at this news...and i'm betting that if geebs is reading this far, he'll make a particular response to this...
our next stop is engaku-ju, which is a brilliant zen buddhist temple & my favorite of the ones we visited. its home to numerous japanese national treasures, including a tree thats about 1200 years old and has a pink exterior in places--you could hear the mountain noises all around as you went through the area, and to get to the uppermost point you climb up a flight of 140 steps to get a breathtaking view of the mountains around. i took some pictures but they don't begin to do justice...also, as a side note, its during the climbing of these stairs that i finally realize why its difficult to climb steps here--japanese feet are usually much smaller than mine, and the steps are designed the way they are because they don't imagine too many size 12s climbing up them--steps aren't usually a problem for me, but they were at that time...
to be honest, at this point the temples start to blur. its not because they were subpar, but simply because when you spend one day seeing so many of these that share similar characteristics, its difficult to remember the merits of each. we visited 3 more afterward--the most striking thing from the first was a 5-foot squirrel monument with large testicles. sato tells me that the size of his balls represent good fortune, and by rubbing them you will be blessed with money (makes sense to me)...the second temple had some restricted areas that were under repair, but we happened to be there at the time they had their evening prayer. the bells rang and they chanted in unison--to be honest i felt like this was something i shouldn't be witnessing, but there was a sign saying it was okay as long as you didn't make fun of the festivities--it was pretty mesmerizing...and the third temple had some spectacular views, including many japanese bridges and a long pathway that extended to the temple, which was adorned with cherry blossoms just a few weeks before (the cherry blossoms had just left tokyo when i arrived, although they had moved up north). my rough guide told me that a shogun had been murdered on the steps leading up to the temple about 750 years ago...and by this time, evening was setting and we bid kamakura adieu...
sato's mom picked us up at the station again & took us back to their place. on the way, we stopped to see one of her doctors who had saved her life years ago (she had a back pain so severe she wasn't able to walk, but under his supervision she recovered)--he's also a judo instructor, and was a pretty big guy--he told me to look into judo in atlanta, but you readers should know how effective that'd be for me...once we got back, we sat around momentarily and then left for a ramen restaurant, which was really fun--we got filled up, came back, and then sato's father and i left for a public bath...
the one reservation most of my friends had about my trip was the fact that i was going to take a public bath--but why not? if i want to live the japanese life for a few days, the least i could do was go to this since its very much a part of the culture. and as for being naked, its not like its any different from when i had to go to a group shower in the freshman dorms at ga tech--after all, its not like these people want to check me out any more than i want to check them out--although being an american could up the ante on being stared at, but as it turned out hardly anybody was there when we showed up. we paid, and then took our clothes off and put them in a locker--i had a difficult time getting my shoes to fit...they give you a cloth, big enough to cover your front but there's nothing you can do about your ass--and with that we go inside...
i don't know how different it is for girls (and yes, this one was broken into male and female sections), but with guys there's a faucet at about knee-level with hot and cold water. you walk in with two buckets, like something you might wash a car with. you sit on one and use the other for your water. and the procedure i witnessed is different than anything i read, so pay attention! the first thing you do is wash your naughty bits. once you get them clean, you go to the preliminary bath area and get in the water--i had heard that it was much hotter than americans have ever experienced, which is true if you've never been in anything but bathwater, but if you've been in a jacuzzi there's really no difference. you wear the cloth on top of your head so that it doesn't get in the water, and then after you've been in it for awhile you get out, go back to the washing area, and proceed to bathe yourself up. after you've done it for awhile, you rinse yourself off thoroughly, and then you can move to the final bath area. a jacuzzi always feels really nice, but there's something extra to it when you've just bathed--it does feel very relaxing. and thats basically it--you get out--dry off, and then put your clothes on again--my skin was bright red for awhile, and the rather cool yokohama evening felt just right as we went outside and waited for sato's mom to pick us up.
we came back and had some beer and snacks--two things the japanese love to participate in are public baths and drinking. as for when you drink, you fill the other person's glass, not yours. and once you drink more than half of yours, they proceed to refill to the top. if you're finished drinking, you have to leave over half of your drink--so you can see why its pretty easy to get drunk over there...we saw a little bit of a baseball game on tv, which was insane--the announcers talk very fast-paced with no pauses, while the crowd roars--if you don't know any better, you'd think you're hearing a crucial moment in a basketball game, but thats just the way they are about baseball over there--sato tells me that a sportscaster will get fired if he's silent for more than a couple of seconds...we then go to visit some of her neighbors, who are extremely nice. its a family of four, mother father and two college-aged kids, son and daughter. they have a few presents for sato, and i get into a talk with the father who is also a record collector--he shows me his area, which is lined with about 2000 records, with 1960s american jazz being his primary interest. in particular, he's got about 140 miles davis albums (i think that even tops joe barkley's collection) and he's got weird russian pressings and things like that. really good stuff, and even though we can't really speak the same language we can still understand the names each of us rattle off--stan getz, pharoah sanders, sun ra, bud powell, etc. a nice surprise! we stay until late, and then as we come back sato's mom takes us to our hotel, a place very closeby, where we walk in and find out they've fitted us with twin beds! but we move the two of them together, and we settle in for our last night together...