kamakura

My man Drew, who drums for the band Balbao and helps run two record labels, Lifeforce USA and his own label, Translation Loss, lived in Japan for a while, and when I told him I was about to go there for a few weeks, he told me the one place he absolutely wanted me to visit was Kamakura. A small city about an hour's train ride outside of Toyko, Kamakura is famous for its many shrines and particularly for its iconic big green "Great Buddha" statue, daibutsu (which means the "Great Buddha").

So yesterday - though it was a fucking adventure for Maya and I to figure out how the hell to buy the proper tickets and get on the right train from Tokyo - we made our way to Kamakura, and it was awesome. Hot as hell - I was sweating like a pig roasting on a spit, and even Maya, who never sweats, shed a few drops (or so she claims) - and all the sights were totally spread apart which meant that, having figured out the Tokyo-to-Kamakura train system, we now had to figure out to navigate the Kamakura bus system, but the experience was still awesome.

Here we are infront of daibutsu.



Daibutsu. And me.



Here's Maya with daibutsu's sandals(!) You gotta love a religion/philosophy with a sense of humor.



An amazing sight at the Hase-dera shrine, a short walk from daibutsu: hundreds and hundreds of stone statues up on a landing along the steps to the temple grounds. Maya and I were awe-struck, even before we knew the story behind them. But when we were riding the train back to Tokyo, we read in our guide book that the statues are of Jizo, one of the bodhisattvas in the Buddhist pantheon and the savior of children, particularly the souls of the stillborn, aborted, and miscarried.





Mothers of stillborn, aborted, and/or miscarried children will dress the statues of Jizo in bibs and hats and leave them small offerings of food.



Hase-dera shrine. And the lovely Maya.



The view from Hase-dera of the sea.



Another oddity of the Hase-dera shrine: the Kyozo Sutra archive, a rotating bookrack (or rinzo) in one of the shrine's various buildings, where the important Buddhist sutras for the temple are kept. Supposedly, by turning the rinzo, one can earn the same merit as if you read all the sutras (something like a monk's version of Cliff Notes). Of course, Maya and I had no idea about any of this at the time we stumbled on the sight of the occasional Japanese tourist pushing this strange contraption around; I just knew I had to do it (whatever it was) for myself - see below (Maya provides the camera work - and commentary).



There was also this amazing cave at Hase-dera, which unfortunately was too dark to effectively photograph. But it was lit by candlelight and had carvings of various gods right into the slimy rock walls; later rooms, which could only be accessed by tunnels with such low ceilings that you basically had to do the limbo to pass through them, were full of hundreds of tiny statues that people had placed in dedication to the dieties.

After leaving Hase-dera, we walked up to Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, which is supposedly the most important shrine in Kamakura, but honestly, after the two previous sights, it proved pretty anticlimatic, though it did have some pretty cool lily pad- and koi fish-stuffed pools.





Besides the awesomeness of daibutsu and the surprising statues, caves, and turny things of Hase-dera, the highlight of our trip to Kamamura was the lunch we got at the Hase-dera cafe - what seemed like a simple bowl of soba noodles, some sweet sauce, fish cakes, tofu slices, scallions, and sesame seeds turned out to be one of the most refreshing, subtle, and really wonderful meals I can remember eating in, I don't know, forever.