Inside the giant buddha

Day trip to Kamakura! Debs bravely/foolishly chose this day to give me a rest by taking on the mantle of official mapreader. Mistake! Between her and Mariko, the job got done, but it wasn't pretty at times ;-)

I had a lovely relaxing day just taking in the beauty and calm of a very pretty town and its numerous historical and religious sights. Mariko insisted on treating us to a terrific meal at a Shojin Ryori - buddhist vegetarian priest food, which was pretty much exquisite.

How to improve on all this culture? Easy, get inside a buddha! For Y20 you can enter the daibatsu - or at least, you can if you get there before 4.30. We rolled up at 4.31 to be told in no uncertain terms that buddha's belly was closed for the day. At which point, Mariko pulled rank, and, uttering the magic words, "I know the priest's wife", got us in for free. Nice!

After all the seriousness, I had to do something stupid, so I seized my chance to try out a facemask, which I found in this little hundred yen shop.

I look pretty awesome, I think. I wore it most of the way home, until my nose got too hot.


Ben