鎌倉大仏！Kamakura, The great buddha!

高徳院大仏ーthe great buddha of kamakura

Kanagawa's small city Kamakura is sometimes called the Kyoto of Eastern Japan. This is due to it's numerous temples, shrines, and resemblance to the city located in the Kansai region, Kyoto. That's why, I decided to give it a try. 


I went to visit The Great Buddha of Kamakura, a monumental outdoor bronze statue of Buddha located at the Kotoku-in Temple. The funny thing about it is that you can actually get inside for 20 yen (20 cents), the interesting part is -- there's nothing inside...

After our quick and short tour at the temple, we ligthed up a cigarette. While we are doing this one of our friends asks for directions and the policeman, very nicely suggests we should go somewhere else, The Money Temple etc.

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Another funny thing about Japan is it's political advertisement. My friends and I were on our way to the money temple (we never got there, :( ) when suddenly we came across this:

I didn't understand why he couldn't stop laughing until he said: 
"He's like: seriously it's this big." 


After he said that with a straight face, I couldn't unsee it. And every time he had a chance to bring it up... he did. 

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After this lovely political encounter we ended up visiting 鶴岡八幡宮 (Tsurugaoka Hachimangu) a Shinto shrine that protects Kamakura Shogunate and it's also considered one of the the most important facilities in Kamakura.

"Even after the fall of the Kamakura Shogunate, the shrine was protected as a symbol of the birthplace of the samurai government by the successive samurai governments that followed. As the Tokugawa clan of the Edo Shogunate which became the last samurai government took the position that they came from the Minamoto clan thoroughly protected Kamakura as a sacred place." extracted from bukenokoto-kamakura.com

Kamakura will forever be Home of the Samurai.