Japan

Japan – day 4, Kamakura, Yokohama

The fourth day in Japan was the last day in Tokyo. We set off in the direction of Kyoto, stopping at two towns along the way: Yokohama and Kamakura.

It was a long day for us, during which we covered more than 400 kilometers by train, and on top of that we took a leisurely tour of Yokohama and Kamakura, all made possible by high-speed rail in Japan. This required good logistics, as we left our luggage at the station in Yokohama, went to explore Kamakura, then returned to the first town and from there went straight to Kyoto. As they say nothing difficult for the willing :)

Table of contents

Kamakura

And again the Shinkansen and again the speed :) From Tokyo we drove to Yokohama to leave there the excessive luggage we didn’t need for happiness while visiting the aforementioned two towns. We decided to leave our backpacks in the lockers, which are plentiful at Yokohama Station.

Note that some of the lockers are for special cards that get recharged. Fortunately, there are also normal lockers, for coins. A whole lot of cabinets! There are different sizes available, we easily fit two large backpacks into a medium-sized locker (the gentleman on staff even helped us squeeze them in).

After getting rid of the ballast, we drove to Kamakura, the former capital of Japan. That’s where you’ll find, among other things, the Great Buddha (Kamakura Daibutsu), the statue for which the town is famous.

We chose the Yokosuka Line, which took us directly to our destination (i.e. Kamakura, not Buddha directly ;-)). Believe, finding the right way and finding the right train really isn’t difficult, at least that’s what Paweł says ;) This is the essence of the railroad idea here: everything is supposed to be clear and orderly until it hurts.

When we arrived at the Kamakura train station, we found no point with tourist information. Instead, we found flyers and maps with suggestions for exploring the city. Everything is readable and understandable, even to a European.

We decided to walk to the Great Buddha. Along the way we passed lots of groups of young children who had to find their way around the city on their own; walking around with maps and looking for some points on the ground. Some approached tourists and asked them to fill out questionnaires in English – this was one of their tasks at school. It was adorable how in broken English or in memorized phrases they tried to get along with us without even waiting for answers. They questioned us, among other things. Where we are from, what we like about Japan, etc. We can’t imagine it in Poland, to send a few-year-old toddlers into the field and give them the task of extracting information from strangers.

However, let’s return to the Great Buddha. We expected to see it from a distance, dominating the landscape of Kamakura, and it turned out that it was sitting quietly among the trees and not leaning out. This bronze statue is more than 13 meters tall and weighs 93 tons.

Initially, the statue of the Great Buddha was located in the temple. In the 15th century, a large tsunami wave swept the building away. The Buddha, however, survived and is still in the open today.

Upon exiting, Buddha-shaped sweets (yummy!) and sweet rice balls (less yummy ;-)) await tourists.

Kamakura itself is full of tourists, you can meet them at every turn, and the streets are clogged with coaches. All in all, we are not surprised, the city is beautiful (even considering the weather, which did not spoil us at the time), full of temples and chrams. There are also sandy beaches in Kamakura, which, for obvious reasons, we bypassed by a wide margin.

Instead, we went to one of the most important chrams in Kamakura – Tsurugaoka Hachimangu. On the way, we still wanted to look at the Hasedera temple, but admission there turned out to be charged, so we decided to head straight through an alley with stores and Torii gates to the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu complex.

The Tsurugaoka Hachimangu complex is the most important chram in Kamakura, as can be seen in the center of the city: the main road from the coast leads to it, with red torii gates along the way. Unfortunately, already on the way among the gates it began to rain harder and we had to speed up.

The chram occupies a rather large area full of buildings among greenery, trees and shrubs. There are ponds with islets, gardens with peonies, and if it weren’t for the crowd of tourists it would be a perfect place for a quiet walk and relaxation.

Yokohama

The weather did not spoil us, it was getting darker and rainy. The pleasure of walking around the city zero so we decided to return to Yokohama.

Here, the weather was more favorable (at least initially), so without hesitating a moment, we headed to the famous Chinese district (China Town) – the largest in Japan.

The Chinese quarter is full of restaurants (about 300!) and stores, as well as colorful lantern-decorated streets. To be honest, both the Chinese stamps and the people themselves looked the same to us as they did outside China Town, hence the lesser impression the place made on us. We saw stores here that we had encountered before in other areas, although we were once again charmed by the ones all decked out in pandas.

There is something to eat in the Chinese quarter. You can take advantage of one of the many buffets, where by paying once you can eat as much as you want, and we took advantage of just such an option. At the entrance, we were given a menu depending on the amount we paid and could order as many dishes as we liked.

On the one hand, it’s a pretty good idea to try dishes you’d never know, because even here you could eat typical Japanese specialties. They are prepared on the fly, rather than standing in large heated trays like in typical buffets. On the other hand, it has its downside, because the portions are very large and simply a lot of food is wasted, and there is no way to scoop up a bit at a time to try more dishes. Something for something – as always.

There is also a restaurant option in China Town, where food is ordered through a vending machine – convenient, but often requires knowledge of Japanese.

After a big meal, we decided to leave China Town and walked towards the port, but unfortunately the weather had already broken completely and once again took away our hopes of wandering quietly through the city streets. Even one of Yokochama’s most famous buildings – the Landmark Tower – did not encourage one to climb (or rather, ride, and quite a fast elevator) to the top to admire the city’s skyline….

Heavily disappointed, we returned to the train station and continued our journey to Kyoto, the former capital of Japan. In less than 3 hours we were at our destination (do we need to add what train we took? :-)).

Kyoto – the former capital of Japan

From the station we went straight to our accommodation because the hour was not so young – and here a pleasant surprise awaited us. Finally, because we were already afraid that this day was written off. Although the accommodation was inexpensive, the standard turned out to be quite high. It was more of a guest house, but we had a kitchenette, a bathroom, and of the amenities: a computer with TV, dimmable light with remote control, a bathtub with TV, a dryer and, of course, a washlet.

In short, quite a graze! :)

We can recommend this place to you with a clear conscience. You can book an overnight stay at Highland Shimabara – Guest House In Kyoto here.

Note the distinctive sink above the loo. A very practical solution that saves water, space and time. Somewhere we even saw something similar in Poland once.