{"id":5632,"date":"2013-06-15T08:47:17","date_gmt":"2013-06-15T15:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/?p=5632"},"modified":"2013-08-05T23:12:05","modified_gmt":"2013-08-06T06:12:05","slug":"an-afternoon-in-the-ancient-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/2013\/06\/15\/an-afternoon-in-the-ancient-city\/","title":{"rendered":"An afternoon in the ancient city"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before I started taking Japanese culture classes at Puget Sound, it was hard for me to imagine Kamakura without calling to mind scenes from the samurai revenge tales I used to read as a young teen, many of which were set in the former shogunate capital.<\/p>\n

Seeing it today, I understood how in Kamakura, as in many historically significant Japanese cities, hordes of hasty sightseers seem to push time ever forward with their very presence.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Yet in a few small pockets, where crowds are not, time feels at a perfect standstill.<\/p>\n

Alone with the ancient places, imagining the monks who used to bow and pray there, the samurai who used to pass through red\u00a0torii\u00a0<\/em>to pay homage to their gods before battle, my mind feels free enough to forget what Japan is and consider what it used to be.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

However, at the first stop of my trip with fellow IES Tokyo students,\u00a0which was ironically a Zen temple known as Enkaku-ji,\u00a0I discovered this was a difficult state to attain.<\/p>\n

The temple grounds were beautiful, full of eroding, moss-covered bodhisattva icons, immaculate gardens and humble shrines, but it was hard not to misstep and nearly clip someone’s shoulder with the amount of people shuffling throughout every space.<\/p>\n

In the cemetery, I was particularly struck by the “triforce” symbol which adorned many of the headstones and nearby roof tiles.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

As a huge fan of Nintendo’s popular series,\u00a0The Legend of Zelda<\/em>, which features the triforce as an object of immense power, I was overjoyed to see so many of them in one place.<\/p>\n

“Holy triforce!” I said as I saw this one in particular.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Needless to say, many jokes about finding the entrance to “The Water Temple” were promptly made.<\/p>\n

Later on, I found out that the triforce was the symbol chosen to signify the family who built Enkaku-ji.<\/p>\n

My favorite moment occurred while passing through a quiet garden at the top of the temple grounds, where there were many tiny shrines and blooming flowers to admire.<\/p>\n

On my way out, what I had assumed to be merely a couple of tree stumps at first glance turned out to be beautiful carvings of some bodhisattvas.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Something about their minimalistic, preserved natural beauty really struck me, much more so than any other bodhisattva icons I’ve seen elsewhere in Japan.<\/p>\n

Then, drawn down the hill by a thick waft of incense, I stopped by a small temple on the way back to our bus where a monk was leading a Buddhist service.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Having ten minutes to spare, I watched and admired their solemn procession, without knowing what was being chanted or what it meant.<\/p>\n

But most of all, it was quiet and that was what I felt I needed at the time, after a morning of such commotion.<\/p>\n

After a quick bus ride, we arrived in central Kamakura where most of us split off into our respective groups of friends and headed off to lunch.<\/p>\n

Thinking of our wallets more than our palettes, we chose a place off of the main drag where we were (miraculously) able to purchase a meal for under $10.<\/p>\n

I enjoyed a full plate of delicious fried rice for $7 while my friends, primarily, bought ramen and curry.<\/p>\n

Our stomachs full but not full enough, we got some ice cream and then checked out a few random shops.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

The most notable place we visited was a top-tier soap shop where we tried out their squishy, gelatinous soap which somehow felt more effective than any regular soap I’ve ever used.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

It being Father’s Day on the June 16th, I also began window shopping for something my host father might want around the area.<\/p>\n

Eventually, with the help of my Japanese friend Yuna, I decided on some sleek but masculine red and black chopsticks, handmade in Kamakura.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Not long after, it was time for us to visit Kamakura’s most renown monument:\u00a0daibutsu\u00a0<\/em>or “Great Buddha.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Naturally, we had to take both a normal\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>silly\u00a0group picture before we even reached the steps.<\/p>\n

I think the falsely projected weather report of a typhoon went to our heads because everyone seemed much giddier than usual, even for a beautiful sunny day.<\/p>\n

Maybe the Great Buddha simply decided to bless our visit with good weather for the day.<\/p>\n

The sheer, awesome size of this Buddha was enough for me to remember it as one of the more impressive monuments I’ve ever seen; his face alone is about 9-feet-wide.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

I made sure to submit my offering, bow and pray earnestly for enlightenment before I headed back to the bus.<\/p>\n

Finally, we reached our final stop at Hase-dera Temple, featuring mysterious cave shrines, vivid flowers and beautiful hilltop views of the entire area.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

First, I shambled around the opening shrine area and perused the iconography, looking for something new to learn about.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I found this, unfortunately without finding out what it represented, but I would take a guess that it has something to do with walking the Eightfold Path, as Shakyamuni Buddha once did.<\/p>\n

“You have much to learn, young grasshopper.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I couldn’t help but think of that line when I met this not-so-young-or-little grasshopper in the garden.<\/p>\n

Then, as I began climbing up the steps to the temple’s topmost site, I noticed many jizo statuettes along the way.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

These ones in particular reminded me of the cute, bobble-headed forest spirits, also known as\u00a0kodama<\/em>, from Hayao Miyazaki’s acclaimed environmental fantasy,\u00a0Princess Mononoke<\/em>.<\/p>\n

However, further up the steps, I found many of the statuettes in perfect formation, which struck me as vaguely unsettling and creepy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

By the time I reached the top though, I was relieved to find a mist machine and a row of vending machines to settle my dehydrated delirium.<\/p>\n

Peeling away from the group, I took some time to appreciate the neighboring flowers which were so bright that they seemed as if they would be more at home in\u00a0Alice in Wonderland\u00a0<\/em>than in real life.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Circling around the temple’s archaic rotating barracks, the flowers formed a stunning wall of purples, pinks and blues.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Before heading to the gift shop, we all met up again to pass through the temple’s cave shrines.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Although the entrance was guarded by a fierce, fiery\u00a0oni<\/em>, or “demon,” icon, we ventured inside to find a variety of holy deities from the Buddhist pantheon.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Having to crouch down through most of the tunnels, I was reminded how small people must have been when they started using them for worship thousands of years ago.<\/p>\n

The idols looked old and the cave itself smelled even older.<\/p>\n

Rainwater dripped down through the cracks of the rocks and dribbled over many of the icons, given them a worn but smooth appearance.<\/p>\n

As we emerged into the sunlight again, we were disappointed to have forgotten how hot it had been before we entered the cool dampness of the cave.<\/p>\n

So without further ado, we returned to the bottom and browsed around the gift shop.<\/p>\n

Since one of my friends is technologically inept and therefore difficult to reach, I decided to write him a postcard and correspond that way instead.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As an admirer of all things\u00a0kawaii\u00a0<\/em>from Japan, I thought he would appreciate a postcard depicting this cute jizo statue from the temple.<\/p>\n

Strangely enough, just as we got on the bus and started heading back toward Tokyo, rainclouds rolled into the bay and delivered a downpour.<\/p>\n

Maybe the Great Buddha really had blessed us after all, just so that we could see him in all his glory, with the sun projecting halos behind his back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before I started taking Japanese culture classes at Puget Sound, it was hard for me to imagine Kamakura without calling to mind scenes from the samurai revenge tales I used to read as a young teen, many of which were … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":235,"featured_media":5634,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[298,299,268,297,296,245],"class_list":["post-5632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tommy-stone-14-japan","tag-blog","tag-buddhism","tag-japan","tag-kamakura","tag-temples","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/235"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5632"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5711,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5632\/revisions\/5711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}