After enjoying checking out the Battleship Mikasa, I realized I still had a good chunk of my day left. I also noticed that the day was getting sunnier. I had a rail pass and realized I could easily find my way around. With that in mind, I started walking toward the train station we had used several times before. It was a bit of a walk but I didn’t mind.
After arriving at the train station, I discovered I had timed things pretty perfectly and I didn’t have to wait long at all for a train to take me on to my next adventure. I decided I would head up to see more of Kita-Kamakura. There were more temples and other exciting things to see that I had heard about. I didn’t have a huge agenda in mind but my sister had told me about the Engakuji Temple Complex so I decided that it would be as good as anywhere to visit. It also gave me a chance to take that train line further than I had gone before.
I enjoyed my train ride up to Kita-Kamakura and discovered upon exiting the train that I was REALLY close to my destination. In fact, it was only a minute or two away! As I wasn’t completely confident with my abilities to navigate by myself without being able to read signs, this was a welcome bit of news. I made my way up to the Engakuji Temple Complex. I immediately decided I really liked this place. As is the case with many of these temple complexes, it was nestled into the hills. Fall was in full force in some of the trees and added beautiful splashes of color.
I entered and saw a magnificent building that was clearly quite old and also quite amazing that it was standing (I’m sure I shouldn’t have been amazed). It was called the Sanmon, or gate of the complex. The current structure was rebuilt in 1785!
Further up was the Butsuden, or Main Hall. This was also a beautiful building that I simply enjoyed strolling around and looking at. I didn’t go inside any of the buildings at this complex as it was a lovely day and I was really enjoying how peaceful everything was.
The Engakuji Temple Complex is one of the most important Zen Buddhist temple complexes in Japan. It was really beautiful hearing Buddhist chants coming from one of the buildings as I explored the complex. Unsurprisingly, this was coming from the Kojirin meditation hall. This building was erected 400 years ago, if I read things correctly!
As I wandered further up into the hills, I kept finding more beautiful buildings. Many of these buildings were hundreds of years old. Standing among them transported you to a different era and it was easy to forget that one was in the 21st century.
After taking probably way too many photos, I made my way down the hill and explored another hill to see if there were some good photo ops (they were not as good as I thought) before making my way to the next location.
The next stop was the Meigetsuin Temple. It was a beautiful location that also was nestled into the hills and mountains. This temple had plenty of gardens, bridges, and a lovely little creek. It was beautiful in the fall but I imagine it REALLY shines in the spring! There was also a temple with a Hojo (main hall) that had a circular window that provided a glimpse into an inner garden. It was serene and spectacular to look at. It was here that I had my Goshuincho painted and stamped. I also had this done at my previous stop.
As I wandered back through the complex, I found a lovely grove of bamboo trees that I enjoyed listening to the wind blow through. It created a musical and percussive sound that was peaceful and I just enjoyed being surrounded by it.
Near the front of the temple, there were little stone rabbits on a bridge looking at the little creek. There were also some fun bridges and buildings to enjoy as well. Once again, I took too many photos.
My next stop was Tokei-ji. This was an older complex and forbid photography so I just wandered around for a little while. At this point, I realized I was getting closer to the Kamakura train station I had previously visited so decided to just keep walking in that direction and see what I found. This turned out to be a very good idea.
I continued on my adventure and found the Jochi-ji Temple. This one was found in the midst of a forest and had some beautiful views. It was smaller but also had some really beautiful things to look at. Some of these didn’t allow photography. This was a quiet place and I wandered around for a bit before taking my Goshuincho up to the person to do their magic on it. I then continued my exploration of the area.
As I wandered through the streets of Kamakura, I found myself passing various temples and shrines that were right in the middle of different parts of the city. While many of these I just looked at and kept walking, I eventually discovered one that looked bigger and had some fairly substantial gates. Intrigued, I decided to see what I could find. In hindsight, I’m really glad I did this!
As I wandered inside the gates, I saw a walkway that was the size of a road that was lined by cherry trees (again, would have been lovely in spring) with a gate temple building at the end of the path that was quite impressive in size. The entrance was lined by a couple of buildings for purchasing entrance tickets and also a Goshuincho station. I of course had to do this before exploring the complex further.
It turned out that this was called Kencho-ji. It is the oldest Zen training monastery in Japan. I will admit, as I wandered the grounds I really had no clue what I was looking at. I googled it quickly and discovered this was actually a fairly important location. What I was more intrigued by, however, was how beautiful it was. There were trees there that were bright gold and contrasted in an absolutely beautiful way against some of the temple buildings.
The grounds were mainly empty as I wandered around them. Part of the temple complex was closed off to tourists, presumably to allow for a quiet space for the Zen training. Between there not being many people at this temple and the people who were there being Japanese or monks, it was a beautiful and isolating experience to just observe what was going on around me. While I was very in the moment, I also felt very disconnected. It was not something I am used to feeling when traveling but I also found it unique, intriguing, and in a way it was beautiful.
Eventually, I decided to continue walking and exploring so I wouldn’t be out too late and risk getting lost when the sun went down. I kept walking toward where I believed the train station would be found. I then made a happy discovery. It was one of the side gates to Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, which I had visited on my first trip to Kamakura.
I made my way up some stairs and found myself by the Torii Gates that led up to an Inari Shrine. This time I didn’t climb all the way up to the shrine, but instead just took pictures of the beautiful gates.
I then made my way around to the main shrine. The view was as impressive as I remembered and I just took it in for a few minutes. Eventually, I made my way back down the stairs. It was not lost on me that at this point in the day, I was basically framing my trip by reversing the trek that I had made at the beginning of the trip. The rest of my day would be almost a direct reversal of that first trip to Kamakura.
At the bottom of this massive stairway, I wandered around the grounds and simply enjoyed being in the space. I made my way over to the Hataage Benzaiten Shrine at the “front” of the complex. We had stopped there before but didn’t have coins to get my Goshuincho painted and stamped. I remedied this on this visit. I particularly liked this location as it is on an island in the middle of a lake.
Then, I began to make my way back to the Kamakura train station via the big Torii gate. It was really fun to take photos of once again. I made my way down the main thoroughfare and took photos along the way. It would have been very easy to spend an entire day taking photos in the area.
Eventually, I found myself once again on the Komachi-Dori Street. I did take a few photos here but mostly just watched people shop and looked into the variety of different shops that were found there. To say there were a lot would be an understatement. There were shops, restaurants, and other vendors with a wide array of different offerings. The most common offerings seemed to be chopsticks, which could be personalized. However, there were also fancy soaps, random foods, cake shops, and some really random cafés.
Finally, I noticed that the sun was starting to set and realized that once it did, things would get dark quickly. I made my way over to the train station and easily found the correct one to take me back to Yokosuka. The train was not full at all and was a relaxing way to end my day. My feet were also quite happy to not be walking. I really should have measured the miles I had walked that day as I’m sure it was quite a few.
Back in Yokosuka, I had one more stop to end the day. This stop was at Starbucks. Believe it or not, I hadn’t been inside one the entire trip! It turned out that 7-11’s coffee had been more than sufficient so we just hadn’t made it a priority. However, I did want to stop at the local Starbucks and check it out. It honestly wasn’t that different than Starbucks anywhere else. Yes, there was a bit of a language barrier but for the most part, it looked and felt like Starbucks everywhere else. It just had a beautiful view of the bay out front! It also was very busy!
My Americano in hand, I walked back to my sister’s place and thought about the adventures of the day and the whole trip. It was quiet and it gave me plenty of space to think about what an incredible country Japan is and what an amazing trip I had. Thank goodness for an amazing sister who made sure that her brother got to experience amazing things!
There really is only one more adventure from my trip to Japan. I will be writing about it soon. It really was pretty incredible! For now, what did you think of this adventure? Have you been to any of these places? What did you think of them? Share your thoughts and opinions in the comments below!
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