Kamakura (Bob)

Today was the day we decided to see the large bronze Buddha in Kamakura. There's a local festival happening in Asakusa, so our day began with 500 men, dressed in traditional garb, but seemingly without pants, went marching past K's House. The fun hasn't ended all weekend. It reminds me of the time Cathy and I checked into an hotel, only to find that an Iron Man Triathalon was starting at the hotel at 6AM the next morning.

That happening concluded, we decided to tackle the train system of Tokyo. So the trip from Asakusa to Akiabara to Tokyo to Kamakura to Hase we managed to traverse in three hours and four trains. Friendly Japanaese helped us several times, noticing the dumbstruck expressions on our faces in the middle of Tokyo Station. The Japan Rail Passes were a blessing for the JR segments, since we could breeze through the ticketing process.

Once there, the Daibutsu was amazing. Cast of bronze plate, it is massive. It's also hollow, and we went into the interior at one point. By the time we got back to Kamakua proper, it was lunchtime, so we walked the streets of Kamakura until we found a small, family run restraunt (I'll fix these odious mispellings when we're home and put some pictures in). We had some ramen and some good pan fried gyoza.

After that, it was Tinker to Evers to Chance again, and somehow, we made it back to K's House, where the festival was still going full throttle. The Tokyo Tower is nearby, so we decided to walk to it. It didn't SEEM far until we had walked for twenty minutes and it wasn't appreciably closer. We decided to take a picture and give up, since it had started raining, when Gary realized he's left his camera at our last stop, so we quickly retraced our steps and retrieved his camera. The sales clerk at the store had naturally put it aside for him.

The streets were full of festival-goers and there were food stalls aplenty, so we decided to do street food for dinner. It was probably our cheapest dinner, but quite good. We carried it back to K's, along with two cans of peach nectar from one of the ubiquitous vending machines along the way. We weren't quite sure what we had purchased, but it turned out to be very interesting and edible. The skewered chicken skin was the only thing that didn't work for me.

Tomorrow is Mt Fuji, which I'll leave for Gary's impressions. It's supposed to rain, but anything can happen up there.