Breakfast of Californians or Goodbye Kamakura Tuesday
The next day held more promise for relaxation - off to Kamakura (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamakura%2C_Kanagawa), a beach town outside of Tokyo, things are a bit more laid back, and there are too many %$&#ing temples:
It started with a traditional California lunch at Freshness Burger:
The day started with Kita-Kamakura, the Temple Engakuji (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engakuji): (Again these 2 are Jess pictures):
They have archery there apparently:
These are my pics again. Jess gets great temple shots - I get a freakin flower:
Last time I came after Engakuji we went on a pain in the ass (lovely) hike through the woods up steep grades leading (after a substantial amount of my life) to the Big Buddha. That courses misses the big the big central Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine. This time we would catch it by taking a more conventional route. We had ambitions of doing that, the Buddha, and a half dozen others. Ambition being the key word here. Walk was nice - ate AMAZING sweet potato ice cream. Serious - its great, don't knock it till you try it. There were cool souvenirs:
But the walk took much longer than anticipated from Kita-Kamakura.
Finally: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsurugaoka_Hachiman_Shrine: Now Enjoy a large raft of pictures:
And now for Jess's even better pictures - notice please her neat "color accent" selective color feature available on Canon Powershots:
Anyway on to Kamakura proper, via a nice tree canopied main street. Its a nice town, a nice beach.
Also, I can't help myself, beautiful muscle cars:
Of course this all took forever and apparently Kamakura in an afternoon is not as reasonable as I had thought. Even without the hike, it was a hike. Also - no taxis in Kamakura for some reason. Sadly - we only reached the Big Buddha 20 minutes after it had closed. I'm really sorry guys. What we were supposed to see looked like this:
But all we could get was tantamount to a picture of bigfoot (Jess's pic):
Eventually back to Shibuya. Now for a direct picture comparison - her canon and my Casio - regarding a weird building in shibuya suspended in air by a disturbing thin latticework. Jess on her Canon Elph SD1000:
Me on my Casio Exilim EZ-Z1080:
Good thing I had an interesting week last week - notice not a bloody thing RECENT to report on. Anyway from there we tied off the night with standing Sushi in Shibuya. You belly up to the bar, they line em up on a tea leaf for you by request. Of course, in this place the fish doesn't have to be entirely raw:
Yeah, just some otoro (the ultimate, fattiest tuna) seared by blowtorch:
It started with a traditional California lunch at Freshness Burger:
The day started with Kita-Kamakura, the Temple Engakuji (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engakuji): (Again these 2 are Jess pictures):
They have archery there apparently:
These are my pics again. Jess gets great temple shots - I get a freakin flower:
Last time I came after Engakuji we went on a pain in the ass (lovely) hike through the woods up steep grades leading (after a substantial amount of my life) to the Big Buddha. That courses misses the big the big central Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine. This time we would catch it by taking a more conventional route. We had ambitions of doing that, the Buddha, and a half dozen others. Ambition being the key word here. Walk was nice - ate AMAZING sweet potato ice cream. Serious - its great, don't knock it till you try it. There were cool souvenirs:
But the walk took much longer than anticipated from Kita-Kamakura.
Finally: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsurugaoka_Hachiman_Shrine: Now Enjoy a large raft of pictures:
And now for Jess's even better pictures - notice please her neat "color accent" selective color feature available on Canon Powershots:
Anyway on to Kamakura proper, via a nice tree canopied main street. Its a nice town, a nice beach.
Also, I can't help myself, beautiful muscle cars:
Of course this all took forever and apparently Kamakura in an afternoon is not as reasonable as I had thought. Even without the hike, it was a hike. Also - no taxis in Kamakura for some reason. Sadly - we only reached the Big Buddha 20 minutes after it had closed. I'm really sorry guys. What we were supposed to see looked like this:
But all we could get was tantamount to a picture of bigfoot (Jess's pic):
Eventually back to Shibuya. Now for a direct picture comparison - her canon and my Casio - regarding a weird building in shibuya suspended in air by a disturbing thin latticework. Jess on her Canon Elph SD1000:
Me on my Casio Exilim EZ-Z1080:
Good thing I had an interesting week last week - notice not a bloody thing RECENT to report on. Anyway from there we tied off the night with standing Sushi in Shibuya. You belly up to the bar, they line em up on a tea leaf for you by request. Of course, in this place the fish doesn't have to be entirely raw:
Yeah, just some otoro (the ultimate, fattiest tuna) seared by blowtorch: