Sweet Gofer

I want to eat this but have not yet. It is available at out friendly neighborhood 7-11 but every morning I say to myself that there are multitudinous options better than convenience store waffles available for breakfast. So once again I had an onigiri- but this time I waited until I was on the train. I devoured it in public like a barbarian- it was a self-wrapping one, but I opened it wrong so it got kinda messy. The train ride to Kita Kamakura was very interesting. There were more real Japanese people on the train, instead of the perfect and well-polished people I had been seeing on the train it Tokyo. It's just amazing how different it is outside of Tokyo. Yokohama was very industrial and had the epitome of huge soulless apartment buildings. I would never want to live in a place like that, but I suppose people do what they have to. I bet many of them commute to TOkyo for work. I looked at the cost of housing and it was unbelievable. In a real estate business window I saw a tiny 1 bedroom 3 floor house for around $300,000- the bottom floor was the garage and I guess the middle floor was the living room.
So I have no idea what or why this is, but it was really cool to be riding the train and see this huge head sticking up out of a passing hill.
We got off the train north of Kamakura (at Kita-Kamakura) and strolled through the land of temples and shrines. The first place we stopped was a former nunnery and shrine for widows called Tokeiji. I spent a lot of time taking pictures of the many grave stones all over the hills behind the main complex. Some were very old and some were quite new and shiny.
The forest and hillside was very lush and beautiful. There were ferns growing everywhere and really tall trees- i know there were cyprus and pines and a bunch i couldn't identify.
At that shrine there were mostly old people. It might also have been because it was very early in the morning when we got there. As the day progress we saw more young people. The only gaijin were saw were at the Daibutsu and at the station.
We stopped at a little gift shop after the first temple because I had to get a fan. Fans here are really expensive and the one I got was $21, which is in the low range for fans
that i've seen thus fan. However it was very worth it- it was so hot and humid and the breeze was only intermittent. I also understand why handkerchiefs are so necessary. Your face winds up slick with sweat so quickly here and it is far more civilized to use a handkerchief to wipe your face than your shirt. The woman in the shop was very nice and happy to talk to us about the weather in Japanese. I was pleased that I understood most of what she said.
Next was Jouchiji Temple where there were very scenic traditional house style buildings as well as graves and statues. I found a sign that said, in english,'the god of happiness is waiting for you in the cave" so i followed it and found the god, Hotei. A little old man and a little old woman were on their way to Hotei at the same time as me. The woman asked me where I was from and we had a small conversation about weather and Akita. Then I was about to take a picture of the Hotei statue but she said not to and showed me that I should rub his belly instead. He was a very fat and jovial smiling guy with droopy ears and pointing finger that had been rubbed shiny like his belly from being touched. On the way to Hotei I found a cool statute of Kanon in a cave.
Also there was supposed to be a special well but I couldn't find it and it was hot and everyone was reading to go find something to eat.
It was 11am and we were the first customers there. All three of us got the soba and tempura set lunch. It was very delicious. The waitress was also really cute so I asked if I could take her picture, I bet she thought I was very silly. I also got a soba(buckwheat) beer that was better than any of the other beer I've had here- but I discovered it is made by Rogue brewing, which explained both it's price and its tastiness.
We stopped at En-noji Temple next, it is the shrine for the lord of Hell. There were many detailed sculptures in the shrine, but no photos were allowed- so no photos to post. Enma-ou was in the middle of the far wall and flanking him, around the wall of either side were various judges and minions associated with the process. I got an ema, wooden plaque, with Enma-ou on it because it was quite decorative.
Afterwards we went on a really long and winding trek through Kamakura to find Egara-jinja, a shrine that students make pilgrimages to in hopes of getting help with academic success. It was very difficult to keep walking past all of these interesting look places, but it was a pretty long walk and we needed to stay focused in order to get to the places we wanted to go before we became too exhausted to keep walking.

When we finally got to Egara jinja there were a bunch of school children there for some kinda of ceremony. After a special meal some men pick up the big golden thing in the middle, I think it is a kind of shrine, like the ones carried at matsuris. We watched them carry it down the hill and in the direction of the children's school, while the children followed chanting.
After Egara jinja we went into Kamakura proper to find a post office for Alex to change her traveler's checks and figure out the best way to get to the Daibutsu. On the way we stopped and got soft-served green tea and sweet potato swirl ice cream. It was very refreshing after wandering around for so long in the heat. The green tea ice cream was appropriately green and the sweet potato was a nice lavender. I liked the sweet potato flavor best. I also got a strange light purple packet labeled "Sweet Gofer."While we were in the post office I opened it, it turned out to be a cute cookie thing with sweet potato filling, and passed it around. Japanese sweet potatoes are purple and are called "imo." I got bag of sweet potato chips and they were very purple as well.

We saw the Daibutsu and took pictures of it and of people and Katrina followed a small child around in an attempt to get a picture of the back of his Tshirt, which had a beetle on the front and said "Dorcus." On the back it said something about this bug being the owner of big jaws. It was a very silly afternoon.

I'm tired of writing now. and i'm still behind on what happened Monday and haven't even begun Tuesday.