A sleep in this morning 'til 7am before taking the 1.5km hike to the other end of the Tokyo Station for breakfast at the Scottish Restaurant... you just have to try it while in a foreign country. Breakfast over it was off to find the train to Kamakura, which of course was in the completely opposite direction at the station. Found it and we were off on another great adventure to an old town in search of a giant Buddha.
At Kamakura we had to change modes of transport for the privately owned light rail style railway that took us the three short stops to Hase. Yes, Chris had collected another form of transport. The Daibutsen, or giant Buddha is a short-ish walk away up a narrow crowed tourist strip. It was strange... as we left the light rail station there was a sight saying that Hase is 4.5m above sea level. Yeah.. OK. But why is this important. Well it clearly is!
From the street you would hardly know that the shrine was there. It is well disguised, but once in the grounds it is imposing and grand. Although the manufacturer and exact age is unknown The Great Buddha is considered a typical example of the style of Kamakura period (1192–1333) Buddhist sculpture. The Buddha used to be housed within a wooden temple building however, as the sign explained, it suffered at the mercy of high seas which inundated the area, washing away the temple construction on more than one occasion. So they gave up and left the statue uncovered to the elements and it is very grand... coppery green, reminiscent of the statue of liberty. And blooming just in the front of the statue, you guessed it, a beautiful cherry blossom. Just the perfect setting.We spent some time wandering the grounds including viewing a 13 century shrine from Korea that had been donated to the Hase shrine. We also saw the monuments commemorating the visits of the emperor and crown Princes of Thailand on three occasions.
Crowds of Japanese school kids on excursion arrived and that was our cue to leave. We took a slow stroll back towards the light rail and tried a sweet potato and green tea soft serve ice cream cone on our way back to the light rail. Back in Kamakura we caught the JR one stop back to Kita Kamakura, a tiny town that boasts some very impressive temples. The one that we chose to visit was the Engaku-ji, which is one of the most important Zen Buddhist temple complexes in Japan. The entrance way is literally almost at the railway station: a station where we actually had to walk across the tracks to get to the other side. There is a boom gate that comes down as the train approaches.
This temple visit was so serene and peaceful. Founded in the 13th century, and using the steep slope of the property to maximum advantage you just seem to walk up and up, heavenward. The shrine dates back to 1288 and while it is not as fancy in terms of its adornments, it just exudes peacefulness. Towards the top of the property, set against a smattering of cherry blossoms is a traditional Japanese garden, one of the archetypal scenes that you see in the travel magazines.. and there it was right in front of us. Wow. It was breathtaking. We wandered slowly, taking in the peace of the place, enjoying the gardens and viewing ancient artefacts like the temple bell before going back down to the station.
As we had just missed the "rapid" train we had to catch the "local" and so Chris suggested that we get off at Ofuna, just a couple of stops away where we could grab lunch before catching the train back up to Tokyo. Ofuna is a large centre, and before we had even left the railway station we were spoilt for choice with lunch options. Tokyo Base, a noodle house took our fancy and so we decided to give it a go. What an experience. Firstly EVERYTHING was in Japanese. Then, to order, you didn't talk to a person, you used a vending machine that spat out tickets that were written in Japanese after you had paid, and then the server came along and tore your tickets and that was order completed. Turns out that what we think we ordered was soba noodles in a rich chicken broth with some sliced shallots, enoki mushrooms, and either pork or chicken meat. Sitting on a tray in front of us was sliced pickled ginger and garlic chunks that were as big as a jaffa. You could add these along with ground pepper, ground sesame seeds, soy sauce or fish sauce. It was very adventurous really, and yummy although I consider myself a rank amateur at Soba noodles with chopsticks and a soup spoon and Chris reckons it is perfectly acceptable to slurp. It was yum and then we wandered for a bit, though a food court the likes of which would really rival David Jones... Everything you could imagine. And, as we had a little while 'til our connecting train we went in search of the suspended Monorail that Chris wanted to see. Yep we found it, and while we didn't get the chance to ride it, we did at least see it pull out of the terminus.
The trip back was a chapter of incidents as we changed our mind, and trains a few times. We had thought that we might go up to Ueno Park to see the Cherry Blossoms so we hopped off, changed trains a couple of times, ended up not on the express and then decided with the weather closing in that we were better going back to the hotel for a bit to have a rest before our night excursion to Disneyland.
Yes, what else would you do on a wet Friday night in Tokyo but head out on the train to Maihama and take in an after 6 pass. After all, Disneyland is a shrine of sorts to a very famous mouse!!! Chris had decided that it would be nice for Liz to have the experience of both Disney parks and that it meant that we would both have been to the full set. Pretty impressive.... and a great plan except that the weather was really against us. Still, it was a wonderful thing to do and because the weather was so shocking there was not a very big crowd, we got to do all of the indoor rides pretty much without a wait. Space Mountain was the only disaster. They brought the bar down on Liz's leg with the foot turned crooked and she had to get them to stop the ride. That meant that the whole thing had to be shut down and restarted!!! So Chris rode that one, but Liz has written it off her fave rides. It was also too wet for Big thunder which was a pity, but Peter Pan, Snow White, and even It's A Small World we did pretty well. We even had multiple rides on Star Tours which is one of our favourites. In fact on our first two goes, both Liz and Chris took it in turns to be selected as the rebel spy and have our face appear in the ride. Good times. We even got to see a cut down version of a very soggy light parade which was fun. Liz was struck by how much more Disney like Disneyland was in comparison to Disney Sea. In many parts of Disney Sea you may wonder if you were really in a Disney theme park, but in Disneyland there is no mistaking it. And it was all good fun.
Of course, a night of riding and fun meant that it was after 11 when we got back to the hotel and so that made for a very late night as we packed and organised for tomorrow's adventures: check out, touring and our departure from Japan.
Outside of the park however, Ueno is a very busy and somewhat seedy area of town. There are lots and lots of "market stalls" selling everything from the most outrageous pair of Nikes, to clothing and some jewellery. We could have spent a lot of time here just mooching, but the smell was pretty horrendous and we wanted to get back to Tokyo. So back on the JR line on a Tokyo express train to get to the hotel, repack the bags, change for the flight home and find the N'EX train out to the airport. There was a small surprise in store however. Chris had received an email from Jetstar that had said that they had moved to Terminal 3 the day before and that it was a 500 metre walk from the Terminal 2. This may well be true if one were to take the closest point of each building but it was a kilometre from the station to the brand new terminal 3. So off we hiked.
