Kamakura

During most everyone's first full week at work, we are put through a cultural class to help orient/accustom ourselves to Japan. As a culmination, they take us out to Kamakura to see some temples, shrines, and get us use to the train system.

Any confusion that the train system could potentially have provided was dispelled by the presence of... the Suica. 

I swear that it's Socially Awkward Penguin

It carries a balance; you put money on it at stations that have English as an option... and you go. It doesn't even swipe - you just touch it (or your wallet) to the terminal and walk through. Anyway; train was easy. Then again; we did only go three stops on one line... Tokyo may be more of a battle.

When we arrived, we dismissed for lunch. I ended up getting Sushi with some great people from our tour, then checking out a two story shop dedicated to Miyazaki - the mind behind amazing movies like Howl's Moving Castle, and Kiki's Delivery Service. 

 Sushi-go-round!

Miyazaki Store

After lunch - the guided tour. We started down an amazing wooded road (in the middle of the city), that started off with a Torii gate. The Torii are suppose to be gateways to the sacred, and always frame an amazing view. Somewhere beyond each Torii is a Shinto shrine.

 Torii Gate

 Path beyond the gate

When we got close to the shrine, there was a purification area. It wasn't required, but it looked like fun... dip water out of the fountain, wash it over each hand, pour some into your hand and drink it, then use the rest to rinse off the stick.

 This is not the shrine; this is just the purification area.

 This is the shrine.

I took a ton of pictures of the shrine; make sure you take a look at the album of all the pictures at the end of the post. Words don't really do it justice. I will, however, stoop to using words to describe sweet potato ice cream. Yes; ice cream that is sweet potato flavored, and is purple.

It was... good? I don't much care for sweet potatoes in general, but I did like this. However you'd describe the taste that separates a sweet potato from a normal potato... this was that, but in frozen form. I enjoyed that while walking to the nearby temple, which housed the great Buddha.

Temples are Buddhist. Shrines are Shinto. The only two reliable ways to tell them apart... are that shrines have Torii outside them, and temples have Buddhas in them. This particular Buddha was massive - he once had a temple around him, but it was destroyed in a storm centuries ago. Buddha, not giving one single shit, just kept hanging out. Buddha is a chill guy like that.

This post is somewhat behind - this adventure was back on Thursday. I should be able to get back to the present sometime this week. Oh - and as promised, the rest of the pictures.