One day tour to Kamakura 鎌倉一日遊 (Part I)

This week is Japan's "Golden Week", where more than 3 holidays happens within one week. This year, the Greenery Day (みどりの日）falls on 29th Apr - Sunday, the Constitution Memorial Day (憲法記念日） falls on 3rd May - Thursday, the Nation's Day (国民の休日） falls on 4th May - Friday and the Children's Day (こどもの日） falls on 5th May - Saturday. So this week, I only had 2 days of lessons..

On 29th Apr, my dormitory's Resident Assistants, Japanese students who are offering their services to help guide foreign students to the culture and life in Japan, had organized a one-day trip to Kamakura (鎌倉). That is to be my first sight-seeing tour of Japan..


We were to meet in front of Building 2 at 9am. There are about 20+ of us, including some non-residents and the Resident Assistants. There were another Malaysian, and a few Indonesian Chinese in my group.. We took a train on the Keio - Inokashira Line to Shimo-kitazawa (下北沢). From there we bought a one-day pass for Kamakura on the Odakyu Line and Enoshima Line, which costed 1,360yen.


We went from Shimo-kitazawa (下北沢) to Sagami-Ono (相模小野） on the Odakyu Line (小田急線), then change to another train on the same line but heading towards Fujisawa (藤沢). It took us about 45mins to reach Fujisawa. Then from Fujisawa we changed to another line, the Enoshima Line (江ノ島線), heading towards Kamakura (鎌倉).




Instead of heading towards Kamakura straight, we stopped along the way at Hase Station (長谷駅), where the 2nd largest statue of Buddha is located.

One thing I noticed about Japanese is that they really do trust each other to behave accordingly. Imagine the gate to most stations are sometimes not manned, and the gate is just 1 little door that provide no real deterrent for those who refuses to pay up..





The entrance fee to see the statue is 200yen. The ticket itself is quite nicely done and serve as a bookmark, although I wouldn't be using it as one, at least not yet.. :P

The statue of Buddha is one of Japan's National Treasure.. It used to be inside a shrine or something, but somehow the statue survived and the shrine did not...





Since it was a holiday, there are lots and lots of people everywhere!! But luckily I managed to get a few nice picture of the statue at several angles..

A few more nice pictures at these links...
Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3
Picture 4
Picture 5






Not forgetting Buddha's big sandals... :)

We could actually go inside the statue, but there were just too many people queueing, so we gave up..



After seeing the Buddha, it was almost time for lunch. We took the train to Kamakura and break for lunch. However, there were just too many people in the vicinity and all the eatery is packed with people...


We were supposed to meet at 2:15pm, but my group of people, around 7 of us missed the meet-up... And what did we do? What did we had for lunch?? Wait for the next entry of my blog.. :)