I love Kamakura it's a proper seaside town awash with ice cream sellers, tourist shops, snack vendors, surfers and of course the worlds largest outdoor Buddha: The Daibutsu or Great Buddha. It's 8 years since I first visited Kamakura and things haven't changed. I get the feeling things haven't changed there much in the 800 years since the great Buddha was built. Back then Kamakura was the capital of Japan (for a hundred years or so anyway until the capital moved to Kyoto and then Edo or Tokyo.) in 1250 it's estimated that Kamakura was the 4th most populous city in the world. So it isn't really a surprise that the extraordinarily large Buddha was built. Back then he wasn't outdoors but was within a wooden hall which was swept away during a storm and tsunami in the 13th century and not replaced.
Me standing in front of the Great Buddha
The Daibutsu depicts a celestial Buddha described as the Buddha of immeasurable life and light, which I think is a lovely image.
The temple where the Great Buddha rests is a very popular tourist attraction and there were a lot school parties there too. In the picture above you can see a group of school boys by the Buddha. Jason and I must have been stopped a dozen times by school children wanting to ask us in English why we were visiting Japan, where we were from and what our favourite Japanese food was! They wrote down our answers studiously!
It wasn't just school children and tourists we also saw a group of monks posing for a group photo.
After visiting the temple we walked to the beach. I was surprised by the number of surfers who were enjoying the warm weather but choppy ocean.
We saw some Hawks hovering over the beach - we saw the birds of prey last time we visited - this time we also saw a sign warning people to be aware of the hawks. And we worry about seagulls back home!
All in all it was a lovely day out by the seaside.
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