October 29, 2014

Kamakura

Our third international department excursion of the year was to Kamakura. In our history class we are finishing up the Heian period and will soon be learning about the Kamakura period, so it seemed like a good chance to enjoy the area and see the changing leaves. Despite having a bit of drizzle all day, it was nice to walk around to see some of the wonderful sites.

After arriving at Kamakura station, we transferred to the Enoden line. This line has interesting old trains. The trains are only two cars long and the floors are wooden. We got off at Hase station. The conductors picked up the umbrellas some people left behind and took them to the station office. Such amazing service!

We had a short walk to Kotoku-in Temple. This is where the Great Buddha statue is located. There were lots of elementary and junior high aged students around this area. It is a great time right now for school excursions. Our own school's second graders of junior high went to Kamakura two days after our trip. We lined up with some kids from a nearby school to go into the statue. Many of the students we saw this day were very friendly and called out a variety of greetings to us.

After our visit to the Daibutsu, we walked down the road to Hasedera. This is a wonderful temple/shrine. Besides all of the amazing features you can see here, it has excellent views of the ocean. But you need to be careful of the birds. They are pretty aggressive and will take food right out of your hands.

These two shrines took up the whole morning and it was time to go for lunch. We took the long way so that we could walk by the ocean and the beach. Our hearts were set on some western food so, despite seeing some promising choices, we had lunch at a Hawaiian burger joint.

The restaurant is on Wakamiya Oji street, the main road running from the ocean to Tsurugaoka Hachimangu shrine. This allowed us to walk along the path in the middle of the road and pass through the three torii (gates) much like they did in the distant past.

We spent a little time at the shrine. It is a major shrine and on special days it is an amazing place. Pete gave us a bit of history on the famous 1000 year old gingko tree that was finally felled in 2010. I wonder if either of the students will catch the hints between this visit and the classes about the tree’s famous history…

To finish off the trip around Kamakura, we walked along the shopping street that runs from the station to the shrine. One of the really nice things to see is that it is still all boutique shops along this street. The major franchises have not been allowed to creep into this area. There are a lot of incredible artisan shops and unique eateries.

Kamakura is a place you can visit many times and see something new every time. If we had had more time, it would have been nice to visit the graves of Masako Hojo and others, or a few more of the many temples in the area. But I guess that once they learn more about her and the rest of the time period, they will find themselves wanting to go back and find some key historical sites on their own.

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about Seiritsu

Seiritsu Gakuen is a private co-educational high school created in 1925 and it is located in Tokyo, Japan.

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