Temples in Kamakura

Kamakura is basically big on Buddhism. We visited lots of temple while we were there. Each temple are around 500m away from each other, so we did a fair lot of walking, not to mention a lot of uphill climbs as some of the tombs we visited were in caves along the slope of the hill. It was almost a deja-vu moment of hiking in Taroko Gorge Taiwan. But thankfully, it was not a 10km hike in 4 hours!


The Zen Buddhism temples we visited includes Kencho-Ji Temple (建長寺), Jochi-Ji Temple (金宝山浄智寺), Tokei-Ji Temple (松岡山東慶寺), and Engaku-Ji Temple (瑞鹿山円覚興聖禅寺). Most of the temples have it's own bell, some which are so old that they are considered Japan's National Treasures.


Kosoku-ji Temple (光則寺) is one temple you may want to visit in March or April when the flowers are in full bloom. It is more like a flower garden then a temple, and even though when we visit, most of the flowers were no longer in season, it was still nice to walk around the garden. Some of the trees there are more then 100 years old and still blooms every year!

After exploring the temples, we took a train back to Kamakura for lunch before heading to Hase, west of Kamakura via the Enoden Train.

Ref:
National Treasures of Japan