Kamakura - Thursday 1st October

Today the tour leader took us to Kamakura which is about 1 hour outside Tokyo and is a small seaside village and a very popular tourist destination. Sometimes called the Kyoto of Eastern Japan, Kamakura offers numerous temples, shrines and other historical monuments. In addition, Kamakura's sand beaches attract large crowds during the summer months.

We started the day after a brief train delay which is very unusual for Japan by hiring bikes for the 3 of us. Charlotte opted to spend the day doing some Uni work ( Daniel had considered that himself for his upcoming grade 12 exams but took about 1 second to decide not too! ). We took the luxury option of electric bikes which was a very good idea.

We headed off towards the beach which is about 10 mins from the train station. Whilst overcast and threating to rain it was still quiet warm.

I came across one of my old friends near the beach

Cycas Revoluta is native to japan so you see a lot of them around the towns- here's a 3 metre triple headed female- if it wasn't for the butterfly in Brisbane now destroying all the new flushes I'd normally be over ripping off all the seeds.

Next it was on to The Great Buddha which was built in 1252.It used to be housed in a building at this site however the building was destroyed by storms and a tsunami in the 1300's and 1498 respectively. Since then the Buddha has stood in the open air. The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 destroyed the base of which it sits upon as well but was repaired in 1925.

The statue is approximately 13.35 metres (43.8 ft) tall including the base and weighs approximately 93 tonnes. 

A stop for lunch for some local sashimi and rice and a couple of Sapporo's ( Joey knocked back the second largie as I think he thought she would come across an RBT on the ride so I looked after her second one as well) then we continued to ride around Kamakura till about 3 pm and returned the bikes to make the train journey back home. Dan ventured out shopping to find some more fireworks whilst Joey and Char went out looking at warm clothes for her trip to Eurpoe in December. I opted instead to stay home and have a few relaxing vodies .

Everybody returned home from their expeditions and then we headed off for dinner ( minus Dan) to a local Shinjuku sushi bar for dinner in between some light rain.

Post dinner we went back to Gap and Uniqlo to pick up Char's clothes they had picked out earlier in the day. She was very happy with her numerous puchases as was dad putting  it on his credit card