Went down to Kamakura again, but this time with my dorm mates. I was just there a week ago, but I thought it would be a great opportunity to get to meet some new people.
Kamakura was PACKED on Sunday. The main shopping street was filled with tourists and vendors.
The smells while strolling through the shopping street were amazing. We stopped at one of the vendors selling Oni Manju (Demon buns). The hot and freshly steamed buns were packed with sweet potato.
We found one vendor selling steamed sake buns.
The cherry blossoms weren't fully bloomed last time, so today was a perfect day to come. The middle of the main street leading up to the shrine has a long park lined with hundreds of sakura.
This is Hachimangu Jinja. Street food is my favorite!!
Our lunch group.
There were a lot of weddings going on that day. One after another, they would have a procession to the shrine with ancient music, have the ceremony, and then take photos.
Rock Paper scissors for pineapple. You pay 200 yen to play. If you win, you get two sticks, if you tie or lose you only get one.
Sakura in full bloom.
Wata Ame. A giant cloud of cotton candy. However, it's fluffier than American cotton candy.
The vendor got it all in his hair, so we had to take a pic.
The musicians and the wedding ceremony
One of the shrine maidens doing a dance.
The public go crazy when they see weddings and all flock to take photos with their cell phones...I also joined in.
stairs to the shrine.
another wedding
My fortune wrote bad luck.
When you get a bad fortune, you tie it to a tree or this string. By tying the fortune, you leave the bad behind.
Looking down into town. You can see the avenue of cherry blossoms in the far distance.
candied grapes.
some macro shots. i really don't have any idea how to use my camera. :)
Today I found out that all these times I've been to Kamakura, I've been so close to the beach. I thought I was in the middle of a forest, but we were only minutes from the ocean.
We all took the train to Enoshima, a close by resort beach town for sunset.
beautiful sunset
On the way back, we found a small arcade that had old-style pachinko machines. the balls were plastic and the prizes were vintage toys.
dorm mates. roy and oki-chan
Monday:
Today we had medical exams. This was an interesting experience for us foreigners. It felt like we were entering the military. They had us undress half way and then walk through several stations of rooms where they took xrays, checked our eyes, and asked us questions. After that wierd experience, we walked campus.
Found the large perfectly trimmed christmas tree that they light up every winter.
While waiting for laurel at shibuya, some Japanese nationalists were preaching their arguements. After a while, they started banzai-ing.
Tuesday:
It was 70 degrees today. Warm with a nice breeze. A fellow dormmate and I rode to Shibuya since a katsu curry lunch is only 360 yen at the cafeteria.
my balcony at sunset.
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