Tsurugaoka Hachiman-Gu Shrine (鶴岡八幡宮) Kamakura

Our journey at Kamakura started at this torii entrace gate towards Tsurugaoka Hachiman-Gu Shrine. Two Korean guardian dogs stand guard, one with it's mouth mouth as if it's pronouncing the letter あ (a) which is the first letter of the hiragana; and the other with it's mouth close as if pronouncing the letter ん(n) which is the last letter of the hiragana. It symbolize that at one end is the beginning, and the other is the ending, and we now exist in between these two. You can read more about it here.


Needless to say, the walk up towards the shrine is uphill, and the shrine looked magnificent sitting on the slope of a small hill. Bottom right of the photo shows a sacred ground where humans are not permitted to enter. It is believed that here is where the gods will land when they visit our realm.

Ref:
Tsurugaoka Hachiman-Gu Shrine 鶴岡八幡宮
Hiragana 平仮名

Kamakura (鎌倉市) Kanagawa Prefecture

11th May 2009, we took a train out to Kamakura in Kanagawa Prefecture, about 50 kilometres south-south-west of Tokyo. Kamakura is famous for the gigantic bronze buddha Daibutsu 大佛, and also known as an ancient city of Samurai or Shogunate where the famous Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine is located. But we slowly realize that they are so much more to Kamakura then we expected. You can expect there will be multiple blog entry on Kamakura :)


But first, how to get to Kamakura. You can purchase a Enoshima-Kamakura Freepass from Odakyu Sightseeing Service Center at Shinjuku Station. The return ticket cost Y$1430 each (S$21.45). From Shinjuku, it's 1 hour to Fujisawa, where you will need to change to the Enoden train (shown here in photo) 30 minutes to Kamakura. Enoden train is a really charming train that runs thru the little town towards Kamakura. The first train leaves Shinjuku around 7:30am, and a day trip is sufficient to see everything in Kamakura if you can walk really really fast and climb stairs like nobody's business :)


If you are interested to know more details of Kamakura then what you read in the guide book, I highly that you contact the Kamakura Welcome Guide Association to get a free guide that will take you around Kamakura. The association is made up of 30+ retired volunteers, who provide free guided tour of Kamakura. You need to contact them at least 3 days before you arrive in Kamakura, and tours are available in Chinese, English, French, Italian, Korean, Portuguese or Spanish. You will have to pay for the guide's transportation and lunch. You will also need to factor in your own entrance fee to shrine which sums up to about Y$1000 (S$15) per person. The photo here shows our guide Mr Hiroshi Matsuura (Age 66), reading a fortune paper with my dad (Age 74).


Ref:
Kamakura
Daibutsu 大佛
Shogun 将軍
Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū 鶴岡八幡宮
Kamakura Welcome Guide Association

Meiji Shrine (明治神宮) Tokyo

10th May 2009, we visited the Meiji Shrine at Harajuku area. It's a nice walk in from the main road, with shaded tress and wide pebbled pathway. You're greated by a gigantic torii gates which mark the transition from the sacred to the profane. Torii gates are found all over Japan where a shrine exist. I will show you more photos of different torii gates along the way.


Before reaching the main shrine, there is a display of sake offering outside the shrine. Sake is used for purification in Shinto rituals. Each year, sake supplier will donate buckets of sake to the shrine, and these here show the empty container of the sake containers donated. They also have a row of wine barrels there which was not there 4 years ago when I last visit.

In each shrine, it's a popular to get your fortune read, buy a charm, or write your wishes to the gods. For fortune read, it will cost you Y$100, and if you don't like the fortune given to you, you can tie it up and let the wind blows it away :) If you are the proactive type, you can spend Y$500 to write your wishes in one of these wooden blocks, and tie it up for the Gods to read, and wait for your wishes to come true :) But what I like best about Meiji Shrine, are the gigantic trees surrounding it that give it a certain spiritual feel to the place.


If it's your first time to Meiji Shrine, and especially on a weekend, you would think you're extremely lucky if you manage to catch a wedding ceremony taking place there. But the truth is, a few weeding ceremony are held there each weekend, and it is a common sight there. But still, to capture that moment in a photography is still very special.

Directions:
From Shinjuku Station, take the JR Yamanote Line to Harajuku Station (Y$130). Exit via Omote-Sando Exit and the extrance to the shrine should be on your right.

Ref:
Meiji Shrine
Torii Gates 鳥居
Sake 酒
Shinto 神道

Tsukiji Fish Market (築地市場) Tokyo

One of the very first place we visited was the Tsukiji Fish Market. We reached there around 8am Tokyo time, and needless to say, did not manage to watch the famous Tuna Auction which usually ends by 6:30am. But we weren't there for the auction, we were there more for the food! In fact, I think we never even made it into the main market area. We were quite content being happily lost at the outer food market :)

Tsukiji is a wonderful place to kick start your exploration in Japan. You get the market atmosphere that gets you excited, sights of stalls after stalls of vendors selling everything from souvenirs (T-shirts/magnets/postcards/magnets etc), to fresh food (fish/vegetables/meat etc), to cook food (bento sets/ramen/tempura/sashimi/sushi etc), to kitchen ware (wok/chopsticks/sushi ingredients etc).

One of the experience of being in Tsukiji, is to queue up outside a hole-in-a-wall sushi shop to eat fresh sushi. You can find the shops in one of the alley closer to the fish market. You can't miss it as there will be countless people queue outside each shops (it's a whole roll of hole-in-a-wall shops there). They are call hole-in-a-wall because each shop is really really small, seating maybe just 12 people each time. The menu's are placed outside, and like a Singapore Yong-Tauhu shop, you make a queue first to place your order, and then go to another queue to wait for available place to seat inside the shop. Photo here shows one of the shop we visited. I ordered set #R as I love minced tuna, salmon roe, and tuna (Y$1200); and my dad and hubby had the set #P which contains sea urchin (ウニ), salmon, and tuna (Y$1400) which I totally hate. The sets are served with hot rice, pickles, miso soup, and tea. Total cost for 3 person for a meal here Y$4000 (S$60).


Directions:
From Shinjuku Station, take the Oedo Subway Line to Tsukijishijo Station. The one way trip takes 20 minutes, and cost Y$260. Market is above the station. Once you come up to street level, turn right and walk towards the crowd.

Ref:
Tsukiji Fish Market
Sea Urchin ウニ
Sashimi 刺身

Japan

Hi all. I'm back from my trip to Japan and ready to document down the highlights of the trip here on this blog. For a start, I'm told that I'm a shade darker now. As I post more of my adventure in Japan, you'll begin to understand how I got so tanned in Japan. I'm also a lot poorer now as Japan is really a very expensive place to visit, with an average meal per person costing around S$15. But guess what! My spirit is lighter. My body feels healthier from all the walking and hiking. And I hope to go back again in another 4 years time :)

To start of the blog on Travel - Japan, I thought I'll start with all the interesting characters I met along my trip. The very first interesting character was Irie Yosuke whom we met in Akihabara. A Japanese flute player who was trying to sell his solo CD titled "Phenomenon of the Earth". He was a wonderful player, but his CD, which was selling at S$30 for 8 songs, was a bit on the high side for me. Still, if I came across the CD again, I think I'll like to buy it. You can watch a sample of his performance at the reference link below (but the clip does him no justice as he played better then is shown).

The next person we met was Mr Hiroshi Matsuura from the Kamakura Welcome Guide Association. He was our free tour guide at Kamakura, and took us walking around the town from 10am till 5pm non-stop (except for 1 hour for lunch). I've given him an idea of what we wanted to see there, but he was kind enough to show us a lot more then what we were expecting. And with his explanation, we were able to appreciate Kamakura a lot better then if we had explore it on our own. Thank you Mr Matsuura! You're a wonderful guide! Photo here shows Mr Matsuura with my husband and my dad.

At an unlikely place high up in the mountains of Hakone (at Owakudani大涌谷 to be precise), I saw these two adorable Hello Kitty! Hello Kitty is everywhere in Japan!

And last but not least, I was able to met up with a primary school friend of mine whom I have not seen in 20 years! Here's a photo of us taken at the Imperial Palace Ground. Thank you for coming all the way from Yokohama to bring us around! Let's meet up again when we're 52 over a bowl of porridge!

Stay tune as I share with you more details of my trip :)

Ref
Irie Yosuke YouTube Clip
Kamakura Welcome Guide Association
Hello Kitty