Enoshima, Japan

After disembarking this morning, we dropped our luggage off at our hotel and headed out to Enoshima Island, an island south of Yokohama. This island is one of Japan’s cat islands. Unfortunately, according to a local, the cats were all hiding in the shade somewhere (we saw a grand total of 4) as the heat index was 105. Seriously. Hot. We did explore the island, which has three shrines to three sister goddesses whose names are far too long for me to accurately transcribe here. There are gardens (with flowers) and a tower with a great view at the top of the island. There were lots and lots of people on the island exploring like us and at the many shops and restaurants.

From there we walked in the mainland part of Enoshima and visited their aquarium. It was very nicely done and had air conditioning, which was a major plus. They had some good exhibits on local fish, making it a little different than the US aquariums we have been to. They also had dolphins, seals, and penguins. It was definitely worth while.

We then headed over to Kamakura to see the Hasedera Temple. This was a bit different in layout from the other temples we have been to. It has quite a few buildings and large groupings of small statues. The grounds have some very nice gardens with tall lotus flowers and an actual Zen rock garden (the first we have seen). This temple was established in 721and is largely devoted to the goddess Kannon. She is the goddess of mercy and has 11 additional heads on the top of her head. In one of the temple buildings there is an absolutely stunning statue of Kannon: 30 feet tall and covered in gold leaf. The statue was made in the 700s and it was covered in gold leaf in 1342. Unfortunately they don’t let anyone take pictures of the statue. It was beautiful.

We also went to Daibutsu, the Great Buddha of Kamakura. This is a huge bronze Buddha statue. It was cast in 1252 an originally was in a temple, but since 1495 it has been outdoors. It is the second tallest bronze Buddha statue in Japan (13.35m).

I am happy to report that we are much more adept with the train system now. We reloaded our train cards (found the English button on the kiosk!) and maneuvered through a relatively large station and a few smaller ones. We went on multiple lines today and even went on a monorail. We’re almost pros.