Kamakura & Shin's

I have visited Kamakura before back in February but it is considered one of the must see places near us so I decided to take mom and dad there. Here they are riding in their first train in Japan. They've been to London and Paris so I wasn't too worried about them on the train, I was more worried about losing them in the train station. Good thing we are all 5 or 6 inches taller than most people- makes following someone much easier.Kamakura is an area along the Pacific Ocean, south of where we live. We checked out three places while we were there although someone could easily spend all day hopping from town to town on the train. We went to Kamakura, the Big Buddha and Hase Temple.
Dad is inside Big Buddha here. You can pay 20 yen (about a quarter) to go inside. I hadn't done this before and it was pretty neat! You could see how they cast and built him hundreds of years ago. Ok, I'm an engineer, I thought it was neat. Buddha is made out of bronze too so he was hot when you touched the inside. I also learned that Buddha's head is too big for his body but it makes it look proportional when you look up at him from the base.Dad asked lots of questions about Buddhism and Shinto so I had to do a lot of reading out of our Japan books, but I learned a lot too. I guess I've just gotten used to all the torii gates and random temples and shrines. Here he is reading his fortune we bought at the first temple we went to. It was a good one so he kept it. The bad ones you tie to the temple for the gods to take it away.
Mom at Hasedera. Look familiar?After we got home and Glenn was finished with work we headed over to what is quickly becoming my favorite sushi restaurant- Shin's. Glenn had never been there either. We tried unagi (eel), toro (tuna), negitori (tuna and onion), yellow fin and some delicious lemon drinks. Dad liked the crab in the plastic container on the counter because they were still alive! That's some fresh sushi. They were for deep frying which we didn't try because I'm not sure I could just eat a whole crab shell and all.Mom was having a hard time with her chopsticks so Shin wrapped her sushi in seaweed and even cut it for her so she could eat it in two bites. We called it her "training-wheel" sushi. :) PS. It's ok to use your fingers when eating sushi.A wonderful first day in Japan!