Sept 10th-15th: Last Days

   On Saturday, we do a family trip to Kamakura, souther from Yokohama, a city that was the political and military capital of the country between the end of the 12th century and beginning of the 14th as the siege of the bakufu of the Hōjō clan. Today, the city is mainly the closest beach resort from Tokyo and a religious center: A city of a relative small size which also is a pleasant site seeing destination. We went to two Buddhist temples we weren't during our previous stays and skipped others we already went.

   Directly in front of the Kitakamakura train station, Engaku-ji, one the biggest Zen Buddhist temple, was built at the time of the bakufu is placed in a narrow valley. As the many others, it is a complex of several buildings, here placed in the woodlands, the covers of the vegetation make the place very quiet and peaceful. A flower garden is even maintain in the precinct of the temples. Build around the same period, the Kenchō-ji is located a few 20min by foot further, alongside the same main street and in the same manner located in a valley. If this is one is regarded as the biggest Zen training center, it does not give the same feeling as the previous temple: huge wooden building placed on clear-cut open space delivers a different mood. It is obviously a well-frequented place by large group of people coming for training and ceremony.

  As it is very hot today, we grab an ice cream on the opposite side of the street: tastes of black sesame and sweet-potatoes. We continue our walk toward Kamakura and 20min later we reach the main Shrine, Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū, which is the symbol of the city, placed at it center. From here, the main street, planted with cherry trees, goes straight-forward up to the beach. The old ginkgo tree that was previously hosted at the foot of the main stairways was uprooted during a  storm already last year. It was 1000 years old. On the karuga-den, a wedding Shinto ceremony is held; all wearing traditional clothes, musicians are also performing slow music with flute and .. while the priest is leading the office. Visitors are also observing as passive guests the ceremony.

   The side streets are pretty crowed, Kamakura is a sweet spot for week-end trips. Eventually we end up playing the perfect tourists looking right and buying left: choosing carefully scent sticks, wondering about flattened tako (octopus) and jellyfishes, enjoying soba-noodles at restaurant... I stupidly presented my finger to a lupa-lupa in its water and got surprised as it bites it.

   

   The next morning we got the rest of the cakes we bought as we came back from Kamakura for breakfast. Then my wife called Lufthansa to reschedule her flight back to Germany, she decided to stay a week longer. The rest of the day program is to go to Chinatown at Kannai station and meet a friend of my wife. The place is animated and colorful, the streets filled with visitors and marron sellers distributing more free-samples than what they actually sell, the shops are filled fortune-tellers and meaning-less plastic craps, many tea shops and restaurants. A business-oriented lady pulled us in her restaurant where we get an honest meal (it is already afternoon and we are the only customer), the TV is set on and displays Sumo fights which I look distractedly while Japanese discussion is on going. The waitress went interestingly over-talkative by the end of the meal and poured us more cold tea than we could ever drink.

   As the evening came, we went to a bar which tenant was a former professor of the University my wife and her colleague went. The Tenmar bar is an open-air bar located on the roof of a building, with a somehow Mexican touch in the air - maybe the hat and the mustache of the tenant - very casual in summer and closed during the cold period and at rainy days. With limited capacity, the old professor is definitively making also a good leverage from his former pool of students to drag some visitors in, also he is holding a 'visitor-book' in which the visiting former students will testimony of their coming and becoming. Slightly overpriced, I guess we pay for the location; however the tenant and his assistant are of good company.

   Notes: just as we took place at the bar a small quake shook the building. Nothing huge but the immediate reaction of the people is noticeable: while I was still wondering what was that (I never felt one before, and it felt like being in train while it changes of tracks... only difference is that it is the whole building moving, not a train's car) the people around understood immediately what was the threat and the risk; and as it was very light everyone continue behaving normally right after.

  

   In the early morning of the next day, there was a small quake as well. But as I was still laying on the futon, I was not sure if it was really a quake or just everyone moving in the house. In the Afternoon we went close to Enoshima, where on that day a procession was organized in relation with the foundation of a branch of Buddhism which the local temple, Ryūkō-ji, is affiliated to. since the sect maintain different temples across the country, groups of the different communities gather for the ceremony that consists mainly in a procession leading to a visit to the temple. The loud (people are using tambourines) and joyfull group is marching on, their leader juggling with a long wood-stick mounted with a large and kinda heavy metal ornament up to the temple. The juggling consist not in throwing the wood-stick in the air, which would quite perilous, but in 'dancing' while impulsing a rotation to the long-stock, making it swirls thanks to ample body movements. The whole procession is closely monitored by policemen on the streets and monks in the temple. At the temple, each group, one after the other, will first touch a piece of cloth stretched from the entry of the temple to a  couple of meters downstairs, and then go up to the altar to throw a coin a pay their respect to the divinity (monks are time-keepers). Thanks to the man of a friend from my mother-in-law, we had the chance to stick with the group and to follow the whole procession up to the altar (spectators are simply watching from the sides).

   Since it is a fest,  stands were installed all around the place with food and games (mainly for children): okonomiyaki, takoyaki, grilled octopus, candies, drinks, kakigōri and other stuffs...  One of the most traditional games in such fairs is the goldfish scooping, kingyo-sukui, that consists in catching little fishes in water with a scooper made of paper. the scoop breaks very easily and as we did not intend to bring the fishes back home, the tenant offered us several tries (it is 300¥ a scoop).

   I am also very grateful to the family who hosted us on this evening, for their hospitality and kindness. The old man presented us to most of the people invovled in the march, offered me a lot of beers and almost gave me bonsai as I mentioned earlier, looking at his collection, that my father was also attempting to make his own - I had to refuse, my father just has to try harder.
   This night was also full night and the tradition is to place dango at the window over-night.

The two next days are spent making some last shopping to bring some omiyage and other useful stuffs we might would have back home. Like a bento box (for bringing lunch at work place) or ingredients to prepare warabimochi. The most challenging part was to be able to close my luggage and not to go beyond the kg-limit. I'm taking with me most of the things as my wife will travel separately, among those the almost 3kg of tea we bought along our travel, books for my wife, onsen salts for the bath, and I left behind some clothes in case next time we run into the same adventure.

   Since the plane is leaving early from the Narita airport, we decide to spend the overnight in one of the numerous hotel built in the surroundings which offer as well shuttle solutions. The hotel we are hosted is at the thin line of the kitsch: one heavily overdecorated in a style which attempts to re-create a wealthy surroundings. Totally accommodated to western standards (US-wise), I found the ice distributing machine one floor below to cool the beer I brought from home. The hotel is running a very low pace with only two receptionists, the rest is empty and they are not providing any breakfast anymore as a measure to attempt matching the energy consumption quota imposed by the government after the loss of the nuclear plants in March.

   Just before boarding, I shortly discuss with an Italian guy telling me it was his last day in Japan after for years serving at the Italy Embassy as a Carabineri. For him it is the end of term, but he sent his wife back home earlier in the year. In the aircraft, an A380, I will then watch a few movies ("Super 8", "Code Base", Pirates of Caribbeans 4" and a documentary about monkeys in an UK reserves). The flight back is event-less, and the food is good. The connection with train in Frankfort is a bit long as there are not that many train on Saturday toward Stuttgart and anyway I'm bounded to one train because of the reservation.
   I reached Böblingen with S-bahn, I found my car back. I'm finally home.
   

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