The next day I must have been severely jet-lagged because I awoke at the hellishly early hour of 5am. I managed to screw my eyes tightly shut and catnap for another good hour, but the loft in Veronica’s place where I slept was directly under the skylight, making any further attempts at sleep rather futile. I think I facebooked for a few hours while I waited till Veronica finally rose. Since I was already almost noon, and I was leaving for Takamatsu in the western isle of Shikoku early the next morning, we decide to head to the nearby historic temple-strewn town of Kamakura.
This was my third visit to Kamakura, but for me frequency of visits does nothing to lessen the charm and mystery of a place so weighted with centuries of history. Kamakura was once the capital city of Japan and the stately architecture of the traditional Japanese homes and buildings belay its former status.
The blue-tile roof mansions with expansive gardens of maple and shrubs and ponds of ancient koi, the moss covered walls of a stone lined stream, narrow, rambling streets lined with cobblestones, and of course temples and shrines as abundant and numerous as Chinese food in Chinatown. If there is any other city in the world other than the Vatican which sustains its economy from religious devotion, Kamakura comes in a close second.  |
| From August 2009 Japan touchstones |
Veronica and I rather aimless wandered through the streets, simultaneously exploring and getting slightly lost (which in my opinion is the same thing.) I kept pinching myself to accept the reality; I’m finally back in Japan~!!! We ended up visiting three or four temples, but only the bamboo garden temple is worth mentioning. The front garden is rather standard, though the sloped pathway one must walk to approach the temple gate gives a visitor the uplifting feeling of leaving ordinary place for holy ground. For me this feeling was confirmed as I passed around to the back grounds of this small temple, and was suddenly met with a deep grove of bamboo, its skyward reaching inviting me to let myself be enveloped in their green wooden embrace.
As I proceeded along the cut-stone pathway, I felt like I should not let my voice rise above whisper, lest I disturb the tranquility of this towering bamboo cathedral. On a few stems which leaned close to the path, I could see brown indentations, the marks of thousands of visiting hands. In such a place, I am small; this is the feeling of treading sacred ground. After our bit of wandering Kamakura’s mainstay, Veronica and I hopped on the old streetcar the Enoden and headed to the nearby beach of Yugihama.
Despite living in San Francisco, I had only been to the beach twice the entire summer, and was dying for chance to don my newly acquired bikini (even if my stomach was not as toned as is proper). Even for a Thursday, the beach was really crowded and it took a bit of asking to find a place to change clothes.As I strode down the beach, I could feel the eyes of many drawn upward in my direction, I remarked to Veronica how no matter where you go in Japan, as a “gaijin” (foreigner) you are always self conscious, never able to be anonymous, somewhat like a of like a rouge celebrity. Such worries were forgotten in lieu of the pure pleasure of swimming in the warm ocean, the soft waves dancing along with me. The sea of this southward facing bay is very different from the violent sea of the harsh, cold, rough northern California coast.
I kept looking around for any cute guys, but they all seemed have stayed home that day. The memory of man, however, is forever burned into my minds’ eye. He SUPER skinny middle-aged man with long shoulder-length scraggly gray locks. His skin was orange-brown from far too much sun and his small, thin, womanly hips he wore a tighter than flattering shiny HOT PINK SPEEDO. The image of him in my mind makes me giggle even now.
After a short walk down the beach, bought ice creams from the “conbini” Lawsons and sat out front on a bench enjoying the melting flavors of ice cream and a summer early evening… ahhh, after so much hard work this summer to move out and move on, training and preparing, I think this was the first time to sit and purely enjoy time as I lay before me; finally a moment of summer.
As we walked back to the station, the dull ache in my head worsened to full-blown headache and I realized I was probably sun-stoked and dehydrated. But I had to travel 1 hour north to the main railway station at Yokohama to pick up my Japan Rail Pass since I was heading to Takamatsu early the next morning. I managed to grin and bare it through the subway crowded with evening commuters and the busy travel agency packed with Obon travelers. When I finally got back to Yokotsuka, navigated the bus (stopping at Mr. Donuts to pick up my breakfast, though they don’t have my favorite matcha green tea donuts anymore…), it was all I could do to prop myself up long enough to repack my hiking bag, check the time of my train, crawl up the ladder to the loft, and collapse in an exhausted sleep.
My grand-scheme trip awaited… A final thought floated through my mind as I drifted off, “Life is good to those who are patient…”
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