Yokohama: our second day

Our first stop today was the city of Kamakura, where we we saw the Great Buddha at Kamadura Diabustsu. Barek washes his hands at the ritual cleansing area. The bronze statue is 44 feet tall and weighs over 93 tons. The boys enjoyed walking inside the hollow statue.


Here we are with the Buddha. This small statue on the grounds caught my eye.


Next was Kamakura's Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine, orginally built in Kyoto in 1063 and moved to its present location in 1180.

The first photo is of empty Saki barrels: celebrations at the shrine include drinking traditional Japanese wine. The second photo is a stage area below the main shrine. Some traditionally-dressed Japanese people climb the steps with us. The main shrine contains a series of buildings.

People leave prayer requests at the main shrine. Charis and our new friend, Liz, walk down the steep steps past the famous Gingko tree.


An island in the shrine complex also contained prayer requests.


Our day concluded at Lake Ashi: we told Asher the lake was named for him. We went on the ferry boat in the first photo, but really liked the looks of the traditional boat in the second photo.

Above is a shrine we passed and the second photo gives a flavor of the mountain scenery. Unfortunately, cloud cover prevented us from seeing Mt. Fuji, which was the whole purpose of the boat and subsequent cable car ride up Mt. Komagatake in Hakone National Park. We got back on our "Poodle" bus (the owner of the company loves poodles) and headed back to the ship. We'll spend a day sailing to Kobe where we'll have more Japanese adventures.
We are enjoying our day off today. The majority of students, faculty and staff are traveling overland to our next port and will meet us in Kobe. With a relatively empty ship, we're being served a special dinner tonight for the 200 of us that are here--and we've got no classes, meetings, or activities. We loved sleeping in this morning!