The entry gate at Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu in Kamakura.
Double-click to look closer at the details of the beautiful entry gate.
The bright colors and square shapes make it look to me like a giant Leggo building.
Mother and daughters in kimonos and regular dress.
The main gate at Engaku-ji
Bamboo and stone water fountain in garden of Engaku-ji.
On Saturday, I and the other teachers in the Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund teacher program had a free day to explore Japan on our own. Some teachers stayed in Tokyo to see the sights, some went to see Mt. Fuji, and one group went all the way to Kyoto, a historical city that is over 2 hours away by bullet train. I chose to join a group that was going to visit Kamakura. It is an ancient historical city that was the capital of Japan from 1192 to 1333. It's only about an hour from Tokyo on the regular train (which is much less expensive than the bullet train!)
The first shogunate government ruled Japan from Kamakura, and moved the capital there. A shogun was a military ruler. Before 1192, Japan had been ruled by an emperor, and the capital had been in the city of Kyoto; the emperors would appoint their top military leader with the title of "shogun."
But the military shoguns gradually became more and more powerful, until they finally took over control of Japan from the emperor in 1192. Although Japan still had an emperor after that, he was just a figurehead, without any real power. Click here to learn more about shoguns.
Kamakura is a small city, on the eastern coast of Honshu island, and is surrounded by wooded hills. It's very beautiful. It was nice to get away from the big city for a day and walk around in a smaller town. It's a popular tourist destination, though, especially on Saturdays in the spring and fall, so the streets were fairly crowded with people.
There are many ancient historical sites to visit, and we went to four of them. The pictures above show some of these sites. We saw some women and their young daughters dressed in kimonos, the traditional dress of Japanese women. Most women in Japan only wear kimonos for some special occasion or traditional ceremony, so we think that they were probably celebrating the daughters' birthdays. In Japan, there is a special celebration in November for children aged 3, 5, and 9. Maybe these families were celebrating it early.
