What a Dissolute and Delightful Saturday in Kamakura!

Yesterday, my wife and I visited Kamakura.

Kamakura is an old seaside city, about an hour away by train from Tokyo.  The relationship between Tokyo and Kamakura is similar to the one between New York and Long Island, or Los Angeles and Santa Monica. Sometimes we go to Kamakura and spend for half a day walking around, looking at the sea, and having coffee in a cozy café.

After we got off the train at Kamakura station, we went to directly the soba restaurant named Matsubara-an (松原庵).  

We sat down and immediately ordered sparkling wine and antipastos. It is most dissolute and delightful to drink during the day at a nice soba restaurant. Most people around our table were also drinking. It was our first visit to Matsubara-an, and I would really like to go there again.

And then, we went to Komyo-ji (光明寺).

Komyo-ji(光明寺)

We are now making a pilgrimage of Kamakura thirty three kannons (鎌倉三十三観音参り). We bring our goshuin-cho (御朱印帳), a kind of autograph album with us, and when we visit a temple that have one of the thirty three kannnons, we get stamps on our goshuin-cho. Of course we can’t visit all of thirty tree temples in one day, so we go to Kamakura on a seasonal basis, and visit three or four temples at a time. We have already visited nineteen temples.

goshuin-cho(御朱印帳)

goshuin(御朱印)

This time, we visited Komyo-ji, Renjo-in (蓮乗院), and Senju-in (千手院). Although it is quite imprudent to visit a temple with alcohol, we couldn’t stand it…

a cat in Senju-in(千手院)

Komyo-ji was just beside Zaimoku-za beach (材木座海岸), so after we visited Komyo-ji, we watched some people windsurfing at the beach. The cool wind on my burning cheeks felt great.

What a dissolute and delightful Saturday in Kamakura!