Buddha, Shrines, Umbrellas and Family

Day 15, Grand Asia 2017

Monday, Oct. 16, 2017 – Yokohama/Tokyo

Today started with a wonderful moment of serendipity. Our tour guide was running late and while we waited I used the port terminal’s free WIFI to pop onto Snapchat and ask if anyone in our family group was around. Within a few minutes, everyone checked in! First was my nephew and his cat in Chicago: “Chester and I are reporting in,” followed by my sister Eloise. A minute later, nephew Zan: “Sunday in da gulf.” He is working on a ship in the Gulf of Mexico. And lastly my sister Elaine reported that the Chiefs had lost. I didn’t realize how much I had missed them until we were all virtually together.

Our tour guide Taiji finally arrived an hour late, due to a communications mix-up. But he put together a wonderful day in the nearby town of Kamakura and by the end of the day we had forgotten our inauspicious start. Fellow Cruise Critic member Karen put together this tour with just seven of us in Taiji’s van. I’ve taken tours on an earlier cruise arranged by Karen and her husband Brad, and she always does a great job of planning flexible agendas for small groups.

Kamakura is about 20 minutes drive southeast of the Yokohama port. It was the capital of Japan from 1185 to 1333 during the days of the samurai. One of the main attractions is the Great Buddha, dating from 1252. It also is known as the Kamakura Daibutsu, and at about 400 feet high it is impressive. For 20 yen (less than a cent) you can take a narrow staircase inside. One member of our group went in and reported it wasn’t even worth that.

The various halls that once housed the seated Buddha have been destroyed over the years by strong winds in the 1330s and by a tsunami and earthquake a few hundred years later. Now it sits in an open plaza, and as the cold rain of the morning stayed with us all day, we didn’t linger long.

We had started our day in Kamakura at Hokokuji Temple, also known as the Bamboo Temple because it sits in Moso Bamboo gardens. I’ve never seen such large bamboo trunks. We wandered along stone paths through the quiet bamboo forest to a small teahouse for a morning sip of green tea. Taiji instructed us to eat the small mint before drinking, thus sweetening the tea.

As apparently is true in many Japanese towns, the Kamakura Station sits near the center. Later at dinner I met a group who had adventurously taken two or three trains to get there on their own. We stopped for lunch and shopping in the station area. Taiji chose a soba noodle house for our lunch. I sampled the cold soba, or buckwheat, noodles, along with a Kamakura Moon, a dark locally brewed beer that was delicious.

If it hadn’t been raining during our two days in Yokohama and Tokyo, I would not have seen all the beautiful Japanese umbrellas. Everyone carries an umbrella, and while about half are clear plastic, many are beautifully decorated with flowers, geometric designs and colorful motifs. I haven’t seen anything quite like them in the states After admiring them for two days, I had to buy one, and the Kamakura Station area had just the shop. I left with three! Now I just hope they won’t be too long to fit in my suitcase.

We ended our Kamakura visit with the dramatic Tsurgaoka Hachimangu Shrine. The rain and cold had taken its toll, so we just took pictures from the distance rather than walking closer. We wanted to be back at the port area about an hour before “all-aboard” in case of traffic problems. The ship doesn’t wait for anyone who isn’t on a Holland America tour. On the return, Taiji gave us a tour of the city’s Chinatown and upscale shopping area.

Classical pianist Tomono Kawamura performed at the evening show, and we slowly sailed on toward Shimizu overnight.