Sunday March 20th, 2016 Yokohama (Kamakura), Japan

Today is our last port of call before we disembark. Yokohama is a huge port about an hour from Tokyo. The most popular thing to do at this port is to visit Tokyo, but since we will be spending 3 days there at the end of our trip we decided against this as a shore excursion. Research had indicated that there was not much to see in the actual city of Yokohama, though I’m probably doing it a disservice, as it is actually the second largest city in Japan. Given this situation we opted for a shore excursion to the city of Kamakura, about an hour south of Yokohama.

Even though it was Sunday the traffic on the way to Kamakura was quite heavy, and once we got off the highway it turned horrendous – one hour turned to almost two! The tour included only two stops; the first was at Kotokuin Buddhist temple to see the giant Buddha, Daibutsu. The big Buddha is a big tourist attraction and it is quite impressive, not quite as big as the statue in Hong Kong but with deeper history. Cast in 1252 it originally was covered with a temple, but the structure was destroyed several times by tidal waves and earthquakes and so in the end they decided to leave him sitting out in the open – which is quite unusual. Our guide, Koku-san, reliably informed us that the statue’s weight was the equivalent of 24 elephants. For 200Y, about $2, it is possible to go inside the statue – but given the long queue and limited time we had to pass on this. 

Following a 15-minute bus ride we arrived at our second destination on this tour, the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shinto Shrine. Set on a hillside at the end of a long approach road the temple is quite beautiful and an immensely popular attraction for Japanese people. There were thousands of visitors, many in their Sunday best – some even in traditional kimono dress. It had the feel of families out for a Sunday afternoon stroll with a bit of pilgrimage thrown in. 

We joined the throngs of people and climbed the 62 steps up to the main temple, there was a massive crush of bodies as we passed through the main gate – as I neared the front I could see the Japanese people offering a quick prayer and throwing few coins into a giant hopper. Beyond the hopper was a more private space where families were having their babies blessed; children aged 3, 5 and 7 also undergo some kind of ritual in the shrine. I learned from our guide that Japanese people could be both Buddhist (1 god) and Shinto (~8000 gods) at the same time – so they can cover all bases.

With the little spare time we had left we took walk down the main shopping street near the shrine Komachi Dori. The street was very narrow and incredibly busy, uncomfortably packed with people – most of the shops were selling snack foods and knick-knacks. We were searching for a coffee shop, but most of the places did not offer seating – so we turned off the narrow street and finally found a tiny little place up a flight of stairs. 

The last task was to fight our way through the crowds and back to the bus, we made it just in time – there is nothing like the looks of death one receives on these tours if you cause the bus to miss it’s scheduled departure time. The journey back to the ship was uneventful; unless you count massive traffic jams as an event.