The Ice Cold JAPAN Experience: Day trip to Kamakura and Yokohama

Hi all!

Yesterday I was taken by my new friend Yumie on a day trip to Kamakura, which was the capital of Japan from 1135-1333 AD. Quite a nice place and it's full of historic things to see, in much the same was as Kyoto and Nara are - in other words, lots of statues, shrines, temples and the like. So we went there in the morning (takes only an hour to get there from Tokyo) and started wandering around! Saw the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine, the Big Buddha at Hase (photos below) and a variety of other crazy things, including this weird cave network full of little statues that you're meant to pray at for good luck, prosperity, fertility etc.

Lunch was a big plate of sashimi. It took me 3 damn weeks to get some of that good stuff into me so I was feeling all good about it all day hehehe. Then we went to the beach - well, coming from Australia it wasn't particularly impressive, but then, coming from CANBERRA maybe it is, actually.

On the way back we stopped in Yokohama (it's about 1/3 of the way back to Tokyo from Kamakura) and wow, that place was really cool! Futuristic buildings, tonnes of shops and restaurants, lots of construction and other cool looking things - at one point I saw 4 layers of roads i.e. ground level and then three separate levels of roads suspended by various pillars above it. Seriously, amazing architecture!

We didn't get back till pretty late, and only when I finally got back did I realise that it was St Patrick's day so we quickly went and grabbed a beer and went home. It was such a fun day but a whole day of walking and talking Japanese (like 9am --> midnight) really took it out of me. So I came home, went straight to bed, and slept for a good 13 hours!! Unbelievable.

Anyway, here are the pictures! Seeya!

A "torii" - the trademark of Japan

Me standing in front of a bloody large statue of the B-Man himself. Apparently he used to be in a big wooden temple but it got destroyed by an earthquake.