Places I've Been 6: Kamakura, Japan

For Chinese New Year, I headed off to Japan. I was fortunate enough to have a friend to stay with in Kamakura, which is about an hour outside of Tokyo. Kamakura was the capital of Japan from 1185-1333. I first learned about it in a Buddhist Art class my first year in college. So I was really excited to see the art there. The city has over 60 Buddhist temples and about 15 Shinto Shrines. It's also directly on the water and you can see Mount Fuji if the skies are clear. I was lucky to get a few view of Fuji while I was there.



Kamakura is known for the Daibotsu or "Great Buddha." This was the statue I really wanted to see. This pictures just gives you a sense of the size of the statue. It was once enclosed in a temple, which was washed away in a tsunami. The statue has survived tsunamis and earthquakes.





I first went to the Hasedera Temple. I saw that is had an 11-headed Kannon. Kannon is the name of the Buddhist Bodhisattva of Compassion, known as Avalokitesvara in India and Guanyin in China. (Side note: The day I learned how to spell Avalokitesvara correctly was a real accomplishment in that class.) I was shocked to see a sculpture in gold and about 25 feet high. It was absolutely breathtaking. unfortunately, I have no pictures since I tend to respect "no photography" rules in places of worship. This is however a Buddha statue in one of the other halls at Hasedera.



Hasdera is also known for the Jisobotsu or "little buddhas" of various sizes. I was intrigued to see a "cute Budhha" in a red hat and cape. However, when I was reading later on in the week, I learned that the bodhisattva Jizo protects sick children and pregnant women mothers who have recently lost a child place the red hats as an offering to Jizo to protect their children into the afterlife.



At the end of my day exploring Kamakura, I walked over to a park to watch the sunset over Mt. Fuji. The clouds were covering Fuji, which is over to the right. The sunset was still very nice though. This is one of about 70 pictures I took of the sunset.



Don't know what I did on my camera but this one turned out different.

The blog only lets me publish 5 photos at a time, so you won't have to look at the 700 I took while in Japan. (And I didn't even shot that much!)