mlchad147
- Apr 15
- 5 min read

April14, 2024–Kamakura, Japan

Yesterday we headed north from our base in Yokohama to see some of Tokyo’s cultural highlights. Today we pointed our tour bus south to visit the far smaller seaside city of Kamakura, where more cultural delights awaited.

Kamakura is home to 173,000 people, and it seemed like all of them, along with a large number of visitors, were out and about, as there was an important Shinto festival going on. There was a parade in the morning, which we fortunately missed, because even afterwards the narrow streets in what feels more like a large town than a city were jammed with bumper to bumper traffic. Somehow our intrepid bus driver managed to get us through it in good order, and the drive from Yokohama didn’t take much longer than the expected one hour.

Our first stop was at one of Japan’s most famous icons, the Great Buddha of Kamakura. This massive 44 foot tall statue is cast of brass and weighs 103 tons, even though it is hollow. So hollow, in fact, that for a mere 50 yen (about 34 cents US) you can go inside and climb up as high as the big guy’s shoulders. That is, of course, if you first bought a ticket to enter the grounds, as visiting the Great Buddha isn’t free.

The Great Buddha is open to the air, because the locals wisely gave up trying to house it in a building after several were destroyed by storms and even an earthquake-generated tsunami. Despite all that damage surrounding it the nearly 800 year old statue looks really good, although admittedly it has seen a number of repairs over the years.

The Great Buddha doesn’t stand alone, but is the centerpiece of Kōtoku-in, an important Buddhist temple in this former Japanese capital. Like most Buddhist temples that we’ve visited Kōtoku-in is mostly open air, and as we wandered around the grounds we found treasures like beautiful stone lanterns and a tiny Buddha perched on a rock. You’ll have to check out the photo of that one below. There were also two busy gift shop shops, another feature we often find at Buddhist temples.

All too soon it was time to leave the crowds at the temple behind and take our bus across town to the even bigger crowds at the Tsurugaoka Hachimangū Shinto Shrine. This shrine is an important cultural center in Kamakura anyway, but today it was especially busy because it was the focus of the day’s festival.

It’s quite a climb from the gate up stone steps to the main building, and while I can show you photos of the exterior, photography was prohibited inside, which is too bad because it was beautiful. Inside the main building was a row of modestly sized shrines sitting atop poles that allow followers to carry them in parades like the one that preceded our arrival this morning. Indeed, they were probably carried through town earlier this morning. Maybe I wish we’d been here in time to see the parade after all.

The shrine is nearly a thousand years old, and for 700 of those years it was both a Buddhist temple and Shinto shrine, until an 1868 government edict required sites of the two religions separated. As impressive as the shrine is today it was apparently even more impressive before the separation, as Buddhist buildings had to be destroyed and their icons sold.

It’s still beautiful, and today it was packed with people due to the festival. A dance performance was scheduled for 3:00 pm at the base of the steps leading to the main hall, and the steps were lined with people who were taking advantage of the equivalent of stadium seating. We stayed long enough to watch the performers enter, but our schedule didn’t permit us to stay for the actual performance.

Tearing ourselves reluctantly away we worked our way back to the parking lot where our bus was waiting to take us back to Yokohama. A little after 5:00 we arrived back at the pier, comfortably ahead of the all aboard deadline, and made our way to our cabin to clean up for dinner. We were anticipating dinner and a quiet evening as we sailed away until the captain announced that the city of Yokohama had arranged a sail away party for us. I won’t go into detail here because I already did a separate blog post on it, but I’ll just say it was wonderful, and reinforced my opinion that Yokohama is a really nice city.

That’s it for today. Tomorrow we hope to see Mt. Fuji, in what will be a special day for me. I’ll tell you all about it, so stay tuned.

The Great Buddha of Kamakura is really big.

The Great Buddha is hollow, and for 50 yen you can go inside and climb up as high as his shoulders. There are even windows to provide light.

Off to the side of the Great Buddha there was a small room where these giant rope sandals were displayed on the wall. While I was there Buddha didn’t seem inclined to get up and go anywhere, but if he does he’ll have a nice pair of sandals to put on his feet.

The obligatory selfie.

Ordinarily cherry blossom time is already over by mid April, but this year it was very late, and coincided perfectly with our arrival in the country. Talk about good luck. Japan has a thousand species of cherry trees.

Strolling through the grounds behind the Great Buddha I came across this little Buddha perched on a rock and dressed in pink. He definitely has enough money from donations to buy a Coke from the vending machine on the premises.

Gate leading to the Shinto shrine.

The pretty arched bridge leading to the shrine was blocked off and we had to walk around, but we could certainly admire its elegant design.

Prayer or wish papers. We’ve frequently seen these at Shinto shrines.

Purification is very important in the Shinto religion. Worshipers dip from the water and pour a little on each hand to symbolically purify themselves.