Shore Leave

Saturday, June 17, 2006


Well, like the crew of the Starship Enterprise whose mission was a little different and slightly longer despite a fall in their ratings, and their untimely demise until reruns, we were released to practice our version of the Prime Directive with a free day. I could not justify making the 6 hour round trip to Kyoto which was also going to cost over $250 just in bullet train fare for more peakbagging. Not with one day off. Although, yes, yes, I’m sure Kyoto is nice.

I opted for Kamakura, an hour’s train ride south and boasting a bunch of Zen Buddhist temples and monasteries, beautiful gardens and a giant Buddha statue. There was a big group going from JFMF, but once again, I woke with the sun, bolted down a big breakfast of fish, rice, vegetables, and coffee and took off with my cloaking device on. I ran into a fellow lone traveler on her way to the subway who gave me a couple of useful tips, like which station to get off at if I wanted the east end of town, where a couple of key places were. Then we went our own ways. I wrote a brief thank you to her on the whiteboard at the hotel later, since I never saw her again.

The ride on Japan Rail, the train line, was pretty uneventful, and more like a long subway ride than a train ride given how the seats were placed. I got off at Kita-Kamakura station which was not the one at the center of town, but the one I wanted given the mysterious MaryBeth’s recommendation. One of the things that struck me as soon as I got off the train at the station, even while I was still on the platform, was how the place smelled of flowers and greenery. There were countless flowers in great variety in bloom there and since it was the rainy season, it really was plush and lush and green, just like the Kindergarten song says about the rainforest, only different. It never rained the whole day, though, and the sun was out nearly the whole time. I was very glad to have Ruthie’s hat which may get accidentally stolen, but sorry I didn’t wear sunscreen. How am I going to explain the color of my neck to the dermatologist, I wonder?

The first thing I did was buy a bottle of water at the nearest vending machine which was about 2.2 feet from the exit of the station. I walked down the road as I did nearly every place else in Japan except parts of Tokyo, and found the first temple. There are not really sidewalks per se in Japan, so you have to walk along the side of the road on a sort of shoulder, although it is very narrow. Cars, the few trucks they have in small towns, bicycles, and motorscooters all use the road. One of the best pieces of advice we were given back when we first arrived in Tokyo was that we should not jaywalk because traffic would be coming at us from an unfamiliar direction. This is certainly true. I always look both ways when I cross, jaywalking or no, but here you could be looking in the wrong direction, thinking it was safe.

The first place I went was Tokei-ji, once a women’s convent and temple, part of a Zen Buddhist sect. It was a truly beautiful and peaceful place with wonderful gardens. Because I left Tokyo early, I missed the first wave of tourists into town and the place was nearly empty. Kamakura is nestled in some hills and most of the monasteries and temples are set back into the bottoms of the slopes and have trails leading up into the hills. Some are connected to one another by hiking trails in the wilder areas off the road, but I didn’t have the kind of time to truly explore them.

I spent a fair amount of time in the gardens which were carefully tended. Many gravesites had a sort of vase with a beautiful fresh flower arrangement in it. This made sense since the art of flower arranging is one of the Zen Buddhist practices for self-discipline. I think I should concentrate on Tai Chi and calligraphy, but that features later in my tale. I also went into what was the old temple itself. It was an exhibit of scrolls and other artwork and a statue of a standing Buddha who was quite beautiful and powerful. This was still truly a holy place. The women at the gate and tending the monastery/museum were lovely, and readily handed me an “English interpretation” for which I was grateful.

It was starting to fill up with people, so I hit the road again, and boom, there were a zillion Japanese people enjoying one of their own great towns. I walked down the now pretty crowded road – Lonely Planet gave a good description, but used terms like “across the road” and then didn’t specify distances – to Jochiji Temple. This temple was founded in the 1200s and is considered one of Kamakura’s five best temples. I think it was number five, but who’s peakbagging. Apparently, there is something you can get called a Temple Card which like the National Park Passport in the US, you drag around to the temples you visit in Japan and then they stamp it for you. I learned about this later, which is probably fine because I could see what this could do to my Be Here Now Mentality. That temple card is more about an “I Was There” mentality, hardly Zen. This was another beautiful place with cool gardens. I bowed to the Buddha there and definitely felt the better for it. Then I walked up into their graveyard area on the hillside. I got a good view of things and was able to sit down on an ancient stone step, consult the map and drink some water in peace which also felt good. I decided to go on to Kencho-ji, the number one Zen temple in Kamakura and a working monastery.

I was getting sort of peckish, but didn’t want to eat in a restaurant, so I stopped in a convenience store for some fruit juice, which was really fine. I had had extra fish for breakfast. Then I found the number one temple; you couldn’t miss it.

Kencho-ji is a huge complex that at one time was comprised of over 39 buildings. The zendo where the monks lived was off limits, but you could go into the Buddha hall and listen to a dharma talk by one of them and get a view of them kneeling on their mats. Some of the really old ones were either in deep meditation, or sleeping; many of the young ones wore eyeglasses. Although open to the public, the talk was of course in Japanese and I felt a little silly standing in the back there, the only gaijin. I did not feel like it would be OK to take picture of these guys, particularly as they were meditating, but I sure wanted to. They had very nice deep maroon robes. By walking a kind of porch around the Buddha hall, you could get a view of the beautiful Zen garden where birds were circling and bouncing off the water with their beaks. I think they were a pair of swallows. I sat on a bench there for a little while just relaxing. What a concept.

Behind this was a road leading to a trail which went up the mountainside and eventually hooked up with one of the longer hiking trails. I hiked up the side of the mountain which led to a small temple, Hansoubo Temple, at the top of the trail. This was a good climb, but I was rewarded with a wonderful view not only of the big temple complex below, but also of what looked like a few blue tailed skinks on some rocks, and some sort of raptor bird gliding on the thermals off the mountainside. The temple had goblins guarding the last bit of stairs, but I got past them. Although temple was closed, I got a look inside; it was sort of like a small Zen Buddhist Chapel. Then, back down the stairs to poke around the rest of the big temple’s grounds. After this, the game plan was to get to the main station at the center of town and take the bus out to the Dubuitsu, or the Great Buddha.

It was a nice hike in the sun to the center of town which was a major shopping street, and also just the place of commerce for a middle class city. I walked into one place that looked like it was going to be a sort of Japanese food court, which it wasn’t, but the little collection of shops there included a luggage and handbag store where I was able to purchase a very inexpensive bag to drag all my loot back to the US. Score! I am thinking I may trade it for my gym bag and reclaim that nice duffle for other use, but whatever. I really can’t explain how relieved I was. I wasn’t really praying to the Buddha or whoever else might be listening for a bag exactly, but finding it went a long way to relieving my monkey mind. And what a bargain!

I found a vendor on the street selling hot red bean dumplings or whatever they are, and I ate two for my lunch, remembering to take the paper off the bottom this time. Then I went into a drugstore to pick up some needed personal items and buy some very cheap film. In the Japan Times that morning, thoughtfully brought daily to our rooms at the Akasaka Prince Hotel, there was article about how digital cameras are laying waste to the film industry and that the once big German AGFA company has gone belly up. It is affecting the price of film generally. Apparently, it is Americans with their throw-away mentality, according to the Japanese paper, that are supporting the film industry with their purchase of disposable cameras. Some people have these as their only camera. (I, on the other hand, am beginning to see why one would drop the yen on a digital SLR, but not this year, I don’t think.) This is partially why Fuji Film in land of Fuji-san him/herself is cheap, as long as you buy it someplace like a drugstore. So I got some.

I made it to the train station and saw a group of American girls, well, young women, on their way out to see the big guy, so I got on the bus. We JFMFers had been warned about appropriate dress in writing and verbally more than once, and these ladies were dressed in spaghetti straps with various pieces of undergarments suggested and sandals. I was sitting in the back when a group of Japanese businessmen sat down near me and behind them. I understood enough to know that they were very interested in these ladies’ attire, or lack thereof, and the oldest guy was goading the younger one to do or say something, which thankfully he didn’t. These girls weren’t out of place for the States, although not dressed to my taste, but they sure were in Japan. They weren’t out to do anything but go see the Great Buddha. Japanese women in general are more dressed up and certainly more covered up.

The road out to the Dubuitsu was jammed and we were sitting still in traffic a lot of the time, so the girls, the Japanese business guys, and I all bailed at one point and decided to walk. I went down a side street hoping to catch a parallel road to the main one and avoid all the foot traffic, but there wasn’t one. However, there were 3 striped and talkative kitty cats outside a store! One was very friendly and I got a woman to take my picture with it. One of its siblings was tired of having its picture taken and went under a parked car. The third just supervised. I walked down the road after playing with the cats, and then discovered it was not the great Buddha’s road, but the road to another temple. I wanted to see the great Buddha though, and was afraid he was going to close (he did have hours, which is a little strange, now that I think about it) so I pushed on down the road.

The Great Buddha was very big and very popular, but when I went to bow to him, I didn’t feel all the same energy I had around the many other Buddhas I had visited in Japan or even the ones in the MFA in Boston. When I got around to have a look at the back of him, there were windows cut into the back of his head with mesh screens. This seemed weird as I couldn’t figure out why there had to be a breeze through the windmills of his mind or anything, (or is that dharma wheels of his mind). Then I got around to the gift shop side of him, and sure enough, for a couple hundred yen more, you could climb up inside him, like the Statue of Liberty. Well this explained it: bow to that Buddha, and you are bowing to all the energy of the huddled masses that have in their tired and hungry manner been climbing up into his head all day. He’d turned out to be the Sissy Museum of Kamakura, or maybe the Not So Great Buddha, no disrespect intended.

When we were in Vienna last summer, Ruthie and I went to “The Sissy Museum” which has nothing to do with rainbow flags or the like as she, Sissy, was old Viennese royalty. I think we can blame Rick Steeves for that one. Anyway, what we should have done was skip Sissy and spent the whole day out at the big summer palace where they had a botanical garden and a zoo and bunch of other cool stuff in addition to the doily furniture which was nice. I should have stayed at the temple at the end of the cat road maybe and skipped the Big Buddha. Oh well. Stamp my card, please.

I got myself on foot back to the train station at this point and went into a restaurant on the second floor of the station recommended by The Lonely Planet. They had plastic tempura dishes with prices on them in the window and I ended up taking the waiter out there and pointing to the one I wanted. I also had to explain that I wanted hot udon, because apparently you can get cold udon. No thanks. This all worked out, and I got to eat in peace.

For some reason, my return ticket didn’t work – I think I confused the two when I got off the train getting in to Kamakura and invalidated one by accident or something – so I had to buy another ticket back to Tokyo. On the train, I was pretty tired and spacing out. A group of young deaf Japanese men in cool outfits got on at one point and were signing to each other, and this was pretty fascinating (how is Japanese sign language like ASL? Is it? I watched them), so I missed my stop. I had to exit the train system to use the subway, which meant I had to use a fare adjustment machine since I was past my stop, then suss out the subway from there. I could do this, but I felt frustrated with myself for making mistakes, then I thought I should cut myself some slack. I mean, I was in a country on a different continent alone for the day where I did not speak the language and had a great day, so its Ok if I couldn’t do everything perfectly. Hmm, maybe the Buddha is helping after all.

Once I got back, I used my new bag to organize my stuff. We had to leave a bag in Tokyo with anything we would not be bringing to the prefectures, so I put my goodies in there and took it to the secret room where the entire group’s stuff was. We will get it back when we return to Tokyo, of course. Then I prepared an overnight bag for the first night in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture before we receive the rest of our luggage for the stay in Komatsu. There has been a lot of packing and unpacking and organizing and reorganizing. The big old LLBean Travel Wallet and shoulder bag was a terrific last minute purchase. We are getting many gifts from officials and people and tons of handouts, and I keep needing to resort through the items.

I have been glad that I have been taking the time to write out this journal, but it is extremely time consuming. Because I have to sit the History exam three weeks when I get back, I am concerned about needing to refocus my attention. There is just so much to say, and the days are so consuming that I cannot keep this going in real time. But I plan to keep going. Next entry: Kanazawa and the Geisha District.