Kamakura

this weekend we decided it was time to get out of the city and enjoy the weather! We headed one hour south of Tokyo to Kamakura a beautiful city surrounded by mountains on three sides, and the ocean on the fourth side. It's a popular tourist place, mainly known for its temples and shrines, which translates to BORING for the kids. Below are our pictures from our Kamakura with kids trip...what we did was only visit the most famous two sites and then we headed on down to the beach. There are 33 Buddist and Zen temples in the area. It was a great day--sorry there are not more pictures of the actual temples we visited..think Christmas cards, hint, hint.!

little ponds filled with koi are very common in Japanese gardens.

This statue is called Fukuju Jizu, or "Happy" Jizo. Surrounding him are thousands of little Jizo stone statues standing in long rows, some wearing bibs or knitted caps. The statues are there to comfort the souls of unborn children.

Inside this little building are rotating bookracks, called rinzo, where the important Buddhist sutras for the temple are kept. By turning the rinzo, it is said that you can earn the same merit as from reading all the sutras.

the Jacob attention never gets old! This lady was with a group of women who wanted to stop and hold him, touch his hair etc.

gross! Does anyone know what kind of spider this is?

Amazing--the Pacific ocean looks exactly the same on the other side.



Trent was very excited to ride the romance car (fast train) home.