Day 30: Kamakura & Enoshima

I almost feel like I didn't do that much for this trip. I guess that kind of makes sense since I was also trying to maintain my work schedule and sleep schedule too, but I felt like I should at least take one more day trip out of the main Tokyo area. I think the pressure is all in my head though. To some extent, it's probably like the social media pressure to post more but on my own blog with like 5 readers lol

Anyway, I actually did force myself to wake up at a reasonable time to head to Kamakura. Kamakura is a seaside city southwest of Tokyo and Yokohama that is sort of known for having many places of cultural signifcance similar to Kyoto. Admittedly, I didn't give enough time to the area and I only visited a couple places in Kamakura. You could spend an entire day in Kamakura or Enoshima individually if you wanted though.

My first stop in Kamakura was Hase-dera which is a Buddhist temple that was really nice. One of the main draws is a large golden Buddha inside the main temple area but you're not supposed to take photos there, so check the wiki page for that if interested. One of the things I found interesting was a wall of votives that were actually on oyster shells instead of something like an ema!

The temple also had a nice path you could follow that took you to the top of a hill that had a nice view of the city and the beach.

One other thing that was pretty unusual was that the temple had a restaurant. Like you could sit and enjoy an actual meal inside the temple.

Of course I decided to do that and to try the curry! Although the temple had been pretty busy, not too many people were stopping in to get lunch, so it was a nice respite! You also got a better view of the city and the beach than even at the top of the previous path I had mentioned!

One important thing that I hadn't mentioned yet is that Kamakura was REALLY busy. Like it felt on par with some of the places in Tokyo. I think part of the probelm was that the city wasn't build for thousands of tourists so the sidewalks were kind of narrow which made it feel more packed. It appeared that most of the visitors were actually field trips, but I did also see a couple tour groups.

This was only a problem a couple times. The first on the Enoden train line. This line connects Kamakura to Enoshima and beyond but it only has four train cars and appears to run rather infrequently. I actually experienced the worst sardining on a train that I ever have, even including Tokyo in rush hour (although to be fair, I usually try to skip the actual peak hours of rush hour and never ride in the morning which is likely worse than the evening). The other time was when I was walking places in Kamakura since the groups would all walk slowly and breakup my rhythm. Anyway it wasn't too too bad overall, but I had hoped the weekday would be less busy than the weekend. But alas

After I finished eating, I made my way out of the temple and to the giant Buddha statue (Daibutsu) that Kamakura is known for. At 40 feet tall, it certainly was pretty crazy.

Immediately after snapping this picture, I was approach by a group of 4 Japanese middle schoolers who asked me in English if they could interview me for their school project. I had actually seen them out of the corner of my eye like looked over at me and then follow me for a bit so I wasn't super surprised haha

I felt that I had no choice but to agree to their interview. The two girls introduced themselves as Yui and Maya, and the boys were a little too quiet for me to hear but I think one was called Sato (although that's a last name?). I thought it was funny that the boys seemed more timid haha

They asked me a few questions like where I was from, what places in Japan I liked, and what Japanese foods I liked. When I was answering I also wanted to make sure to be at least a little different from the answers they were probably usually getting so when they asked what Japanese food was my favorite, I told them tsukemen, which I think surprised them. One of them then chimed in to say it was their favorite too lol

They then showed me a picture of tabi and asked if I knew what they were. Luckily I remembered and said "tabi" and they seemed really surprised that I knew. They followed up by asking if I thought I would like wearing them and I said no and they just giggled for some reason. I don't know what they were trying to determine with their interview. To close out their interview, one of the boys ran off through the throngs of people to find their school photographer and I ended up taking a couple photos with them. I guess somewhere out there will be a photo of me standing in front of Daibutsu with a group of Japanese kids for some report, what a world. It's pretty funny because I'll probably never even see it myself lol

After we wrapped up taking our photos, they said they had a small present for me and gave me a bag of origami cranes and shirts. I actually wondered if they meant to give me all of them rather than just one but I'll never know lol Presumably they each made one of each since there were four of each kind.

What a wholesome experience!

Anyway, I think this is kind of common. I guess a lot of foreign-looking visitors in Kamakura got asked similar things and you can probably find a ton of clips about this kind of thing on TikTok and YouTube.

Although I admit that it was one of the highlights of my day, I didn't want to have to do it again for another group of kids so I looked around a little bit more but then promptly left the temple haha

Getting to Enoshima was a bit of a nightmare on the 20 minute ride with a fully packed train, but I survived. By the time I got there, the sun was bearing down from right in front of me.

Since Enoshima is an island, you can either take a ferry or walk the 400 meter bridge. I actually didn't do my research ahead of time so didn't know what to expect once I actually made it to the island, but to me it seemed like the island was entirely made up of temples, food stalls, and tourist spots. I looked it up and it seems like some people do live on the island, but it's on the order of a few hundred only. I guess most people that work on Enoshima commute from Fujisawa via the bridge every day.

The main thoroughfare of Enoshima leads to the beginning of the steps up to Enoshima Shrine which is actually sort of split into 3 shrines across the island. After making it to 'the top', I realized that it was basically just part way up the mountain. The first part of the shrine has a main temple area and also a place to get goshuin if you want one. If you continue on, you'll encounter more stairs. Luckily, on the front side of the island there are actually 3 separate places you can take an escalator instead of the stairs. But only if you pay ¥80 for each one. I did it twice and I think it's the first time I'd ever seen paid escalators

Once you make it to the very top, you'll come to a flat area that has a few cafes and shops, a garden, and the "Sea Candle", an observation deck and gift shop.

The top of the observation deck was nice and you could get a great 360 degree view of the surrounding area including Fujisawa.

Unfortunately, I was unable to see Mt. Fuji. Foiled once again, I'll never see this elusive mountain.

Because I thought I had a big brain, I decided to make my way to the very farthest side of the island from the mainland since there was supposedly a ferry you could take from there. Rather than walk the 30 or 40 minutes back, I would take a ferry back and save time and energy!

Oh keep in mind I'm in a sweater all day lol So I am working up a sweat climbing up and down all these stairs and inclines

On the way to the back of the island, you're mainly climbing back down the stairs and losing elevation. The path has shops left and right for the majority of the way but I did think it was interesting that there were a handful of shops that had "Locals only" signs. Like I said, the population of the island is like 300!

I also stumbled upon this cool dragon in one of the shrines

Once I got down to the bottom I was greeted by some pretty nice scenery

But as you probably guessed by now, there was no ferry.

If only I'd done even a modicum of research lol It looks like the ferry sometimes gets cancelled, but also it only runs from 10 AM to 3 PM. So definitely check if you ever go and are depending on it!

After that I began the 15 minute climb back to the top. It was an arduous journery for an old man like me, so I had to concentrate on making it up and didn't manage to take any photos. One nice thing happened though. I had stopped at a vending machine to restock on much needed hydrating water and for some reason my ¥500 coin wasn't working, I think because there are new and old coins and the machines aren't updated everywhere. Some random guy saw me struggling and put his own 500 yen coin in the machine and then he tried to leave!! What! I made him take my coin and he seemed confused that I had money but we laughed it off. No language skills required haha

After quenching my thirst, I finished making my way to the top and started heading back down again. Why isn't there a path that just goes around the island without the need for the ascent??

Once I was basically back at the bridge, I thought I deserved some ice cream so stopped to grab a cone.

But what a fool I was! I was so pre-occupied by just thinking about getting ice cream that I didn't even properly look at the menu. I could have had denim ice cream instead of vanilla! Now I'll never know what that was like. I don't know what I had been thinking the blue ice cream cones had been representing (you can even see one in my photo above).

By this time, the sun was setting. Surprisingly though, I was able to see the tippy top of Fuji poking through the clouds now

Note this is zoomed in, on the horizon it was much smaller and harder to notice

I took one final look at the sunset and made my way to the station. I got lucky and my trip home was only 1 hour and 15 minutes even though the trip to Kamakura had taken 1 hour and 45 minutes. And I got to sit the majority of the way unlike in the morning!

Now that I'm done writing for the day, it's time to pack!