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Craig and Efren's travels
Today turned into one of the longest days of travel and sightseeing. Probably we were a bit ambitious in our planning...
We left Nikko early this Saturday AM for our return towards Tokyo. Instead of stopping at Tokyo, we changed trains there and headed to the town of Kamakura located south of Tokyo. Since we brought very little luggage with us for our one night in Nikko, we didn't have much baggage to deal with and didn't need to stop by at our hotel in Tokyo.
Kamakura is a seaside town of temples that was Japan's capital city many years ago. Kamakura is today known as artists and writers haven and is a popular day trip for Tokyoites. As we would soon learn, planning a visit on a Saturday during peak "koyo" (leave changing) season guaranteed we would not have the place to ourselves.
Our first stop was the town just outside Kamakura called Hase, so upon arriving at Kamakura JR station from Tokyo, we needed to find a locker to store our bags and buy a ticket on a different rail line for the short trip to Hase. Although we thought we were pretty good by now with negotiating the trains, we got pretty turned around at Kamakura station and struggled to get to the other line. The thousands of people in the tiny station definitely contributed to this confusion. Additionally, all the luggage lockers were full, so we had to carry our luggage with us. Again, we didn't have much, but given the crazy crowds on the train it was hard enough squeezing overselves onto the railcars, let along an additional backpack!
We got off at Hase and managed to find a luggage locker there to store our bags. We then exited the station to make our way to the 2 famous sites in Hase -- the Hasedera Temple and the Great Buddha. As mentioned above, all of Tokyo was in the Kamakura area this day, so the roads and sidewalks were thronged with tourists, making the simple walk to the temple a bit of a struggle.
Although busy with crowds, the Hasedera Temple rewarded us with a simple and elegant temple decked out in its finest show of fall foliage. The temple is most famous for its statue of Kannon, the goddess of mercy. The statue shows Kannon with eleven heads, each representing a characteristic of the goddess. Hasedera is built along the slope of a wooded hill. A pretty garden with ponds is found at the base of the slope just after entering. The temple's main buildings are built further up the slope, reached via (steep) stairs. We stopped at a delightful tea house for lunch that offered beautiful views to the sea and surprisingly was relatively uncrowded.
After the visit to Hasedera we made the short walk through the crowded streets to Hase's most famous sight -- the Great Buddha. The outdoor and totally exposed bronze buddha is 44 feet tall and set in a clearing amidst blazing fall foliage. Made for some great photo ops and it was enjoyable watching the locals take attempting to take pictures with the buddha sitting in the palm of their partner's hand.
We returned to the train station, picked up our bag and went back to Kamakura (5 minutes). Although there were a few sights we hoped to see in Kamakura itself, it was getting late and the key sites we really wanted to see were one stop north on the JR line in Kita-Kamakura. Since we were now using our JR pass, all JR passes were "free", so we could hop on and hop off at will.
Kita-Kamakura is the site of many of Japan's most important Zen temples. The first one we visited was Engaku-ji Temple. Again, the main star of the show here were the changing leaves which put on a truly gorgeous show. Engakuji is the largest of the Zen temples in the Kamakura area and is set in a beautiful wooded spot just a few steps from the train station. Much of the temple was destroyed during the 1923 earthquake, but many of the buildings remain thanks to careful restoration work. Just a short distance away, we stopped at the Tokei-ji Temple which is a quaint little temple (by comparison) which has an interesting history of providing shelter and eventual freedom to women who wanted to divorce their husbands -- a practice not generally allowed in days-gone-by Japan.
After Tokeiji we headed back to the Kita-Kamakura station and make our way back to Tokyo for our final night there. It was on this return journey where we had probably our most significant train mix-up of the trip. We boarded a train at Kita-Kamakura that we thought was headed to Tokyo. We realized we got on the wrong train and got off at the next stop and returned to Kita-Kamakura to catch the right train. Again, all of this was really no big deal because we simply had to show our JR Passes to get on and off the trains as often as we liked.
When we boarded the "correct" train to Tokyo, all seemed to be going well. The journey was about 45 minutes, and soon after we make the Yokohama stop, we noticed something was wrong. Instead of continuing on to Tokyo as it should have, the train had "changed identity" at Yokohama and became another train headed to a different destination! We noticed it not too far after the transformation, so yet again we got off the train, went back to Yokohama, and found the REAL train to Tokyo. All in all not a big deal, but the extra hour or so of travel felt alot more after the early start we had that day coupled with all the site seeing and dealing with crowds!
Spending all that quality time on the commuter trains allowed us to check to weather forecast for the upcoming days, and that led us to make some minor itinerary changes. As had been the case since we arrived, the weather was sunny and perfect -- it was actually downright balmy in Kamakura and we wished we had some sunscreen with us. The forecast was for continued good weather on Sunday, but rain followed by cold on Monday. The current plan was to spend most of Sunday on the train to Hiroshima (6 hours) and then spend the afternoon at the Peace Museum. The plan for Monday was to take the short trip to Miyajima to see the famous floating torii gate and to walk around the island. Given the forecast for Monday, we decided to switch our plans. This meant that in order to see Miyajima on Sunday afternoon, we would have to leave for Hiroshima much earlier than planned. So, we stopped at the JR office at the Tokyo station when we arrived Saturday evening and changed our seat reservations and to early shinkansen train through Osaka to Hiroshima.
We were exhausted when we finally arrived back in Tokyo in early evening. The fact it was Saturday now worked to our advantage as we did not have to experience the Tokyo subway rush hour crush. We walked back to the ryokan and by now the blisters on our feet were starting to act up. It was a good thing that tomorrow's adventures would have us on our longest train ride so we'd have plenty of time to rest our feet before exploring everything Hiroshima has to offer.
We left Nikko early this Saturday AM for our return towards Tokyo. Instead of stopping at Tokyo, we changed trains there and headed to the town of Kamakura located south of Tokyo. Since we brought very little luggage with us for our one night in Nikko, we didn't have much baggage to deal with and didn't need to stop by at our hotel in Tokyo.
Kamakura is a seaside town of temples that was Japan's capital city many years ago. Kamakura is today known as artists and writers haven and is a popular day trip for Tokyoites. As we would soon learn, planning a visit on a Saturday during peak "koyo" (leave changing) season guaranteed we would not have the place to ourselves.
Our first stop was the town just outside Kamakura called Hase, so upon arriving at Kamakura JR station from Tokyo, we needed to find a locker to store our bags and buy a ticket on a different rail line for the short trip to Hase. Although we thought we were pretty good by now with negotiating the trains, we got pretty turned around at Kamakura station and struggled to get to the other line. The thousands of people in the tiny station definitely contributed to this confusion. Additionally, all the luggage lockers were full, so we had to carry our luggage with us. Again, we didn't have much, but given the crazy crowds on the train it was hard enough squeezing overselves onto the railcars, let along an additional backpack!
We got off at Hase and managed to find a luggage locker there to store our bags. We then exited the station to make our way to the 2 famous sites in Hase -- the Hasedera Temple and the Great Buddha. As mentioned above, all of Tokyo was in the Kamakura area this day, so the roads and sidewalks were thronged with tourists, making the simple walk to the temple a bit of a struggle.
Although busy with crowds, the Hasedera Temple rewarded us with a simple and elegant temple decked out in its finest show of fall foliage. The temple is most famous for its statue of Kannon, the goddess of mercy. The statue shows Kannon with eleven heads, each representing a characteristic of the goddess. Hasedera is built along the slope of a wooded hill. A pretty garden with ponds is found at the base of the slope just after entering. The temple's main buildings are built further up the slope, reached via (steep) stairs. We stopped at a delightful tea house for lunch that offered beautiful views to the sea and surprisingly was relatively uncrowded.
After the visit to Hasedera we made the short walk through the crowded streets to Hase's most famous sight -- the Great Buddha. The outdoor and totally exposed bronze buddha is 44 feet tall and set in a clearing amidst blazing fall foliage. Made for some great photo ops and it was enjoyable watching the locals take attempting to take pictures with the buddha sitting in the palm of their partner's hand.
We returned to the train station, picked up our bag and went back to Kamakura (5 minutes). Although there were a few sights we hoped to see in Kamakura itself, it was getting late and the key sites we really wanted to see were one stop north on the JR line in Kita-Kamakura. Since we were now using our JR pass, all JR passes were "free", so we could hop on and hop off at will.
Kita-Kamakura is the site of many of Japan's most important Zen temples. The first one we visited was Engaku-ji Temple. Again, the main star of the show here were the changing leaves which put on a truly gorgeous show. Engakuji is the largest of the Zen temples in the Kamakura area and is set in a beautiful wooded spot just a few steps from the train station. Much of the temple was destroyed during the 1923 earthquake, but many of the buildings remain thanks to careful restoration work. Just a short distance away, we stopped at the Tokei-ji Temple which is a quaint little temple (by comparison) which has an interesting history of providing shelter and eventual freedom to women who wanted to divorce their husbands -- a practice not generally allowed in days-gone-by Japan.
After Tokeiji we headed back to the Kita-Kamakura station and make our way back to Tokyo for our final night there. It was on this return journey where we had probably our most significant train mix-up of the trip. We boarded a train at Kita-Kamakura that we thought was headed to Tokyo. We realized we got on the wrong train and got off at the next stop and returned to Kita-Kamakura to catch the right train. Again, all of this was really no big deal because we simply had to show our JR Passes to get on and off the trains as often as we liked.
When we boarded the "correct" train to Tokyo, all seemed to be going well. The journey was about 45 minutes, and soon after we make the Yokohama stop, we noticed something was wrong. Instead of continuing on to Tokyo as it should have, the train had "changed identity" at Yokohama and became another train headed to a different destination! We noticed it not too far after the transformation, so yet again we got off the train, went back to Yokohama, and found the REAL train to Tokyo. All in all not a big deal, but the extra hour or so of travel felt alot more after the early start we had that day coupled with all the site seeing and dealing with crowds!
Spending all that quality time on the commuter trains allowed us to check to weather forecast for the upcoming days, and that led us to make some minor itinerary changes. As had been the case since we arrived, the weather was sunny and perfect -- it was actually downright balmy in Kamakura and we wished we had some sunscreen with us. The forecast was for continued good weather on Sunday, but rain followed by cold on Monday. The current plan was to spend most of Sunday on the train to Hiroshima (6 hours) and then spend the afternoon at the Peace Museum. The plan for Monday was to take the short trip to Miyajima to see the famous floating torii gate and to walk around the island. Given the forecast for Monday, we decided to switch our plans. This meant that in order to see Miyajima on Sunday afternoon, we would have to leave for Hiroshima much earlier than planned. So, we stopped at the JR office at the Tokyo station when we arrived Saturday evening and changed our seat reservations and to early shinkansen train through Osaka to Hiroshima.
We were exhausted when we finally arrived back in Tokyo in early evening. The fact it was Saturday now worked to our advantage as we did not have to experience the Tokyo subway rush hour crush. We walked back to the ryokan and by now the blisters on our feet were starting to act up. It was a good thing that tomorrow's adventures would have us on our longest train ride so we'd have plenty of time to rest our feet before exploring everything Hiroshima has to offer.
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