adventure time

finally saturday came, and saturday was adventure time. it was our day off and we got to do whatever we wanted. some people hung around tokyo and explored, some people travelled to hiroshima. I had the tough decision between kyoto and kamakura. kyoto is better, incredibly famous and beautiful, but it's also 3 hours on the train each way and about 250 bucks. kamakura is also famous, and also beautiful, though slightly less so (although the theory is that since I've never seen any of this stuff, no matter what I saw would be amazing), 40 minutes on the train, and about 10 bucks. also, the people I'd been hanging out with were going to kamakura, and if I went to kyoto, I'd be going by myself. although I seriously debated going to kyoto, those of you who know me could have predicted which I would choose

we got off the train in kamakura and went to a beautiful complex of buddhist temples called engaku-ji. like nothing I'd ever seen before. we walked through, I took a picture of a woman wearing a kimono and we just saw some great buildings. as we were leaving, off to the side, I saw a girl training with a bow and arrow. the amazing thing was that she wasn't just shooting at a target over and over. the sequence that preceded and succeded every shot was incredibly long and complex. it took about 3 painstaking minutes for her to take each shot. every move was so slow and deliberate and precise. it was as if the body control necessary for accurate shooting was the result of meditation. it was as if archery itself was a form of meditation. so cool. also, the engaku-ji temple was built to commemorate the fallen warriors in a war in 1274 and 1281 which was the war where kamakaze originated

then we strayed off the beaten path and found the daibutsu hiking trail, which wound its way through along a ridge of terrain I'd never experienced before. it was gnarled and covered in roots and just felt ancient. we walked along that path and stopped at two shrines: the zeniaraibenzaiten shrine and the sasukeinari shrine. point of interest: temples are buddhist, shrines are shinto. buddhism made its way over to japan via china and stuff, shinto is the indigenous religion of japan which is has both ancestor worship and worship of the elements and animals. when buddhism came over, the shinto religion just adopted buddha as another one of their gods. no fighting. happy coexistence. there are shinto shrines in buddhist temples

TBC... I'm off to dinner, and I will resume with toriis