We're sorry it's taking us longer than before to post, traveling with a toddler is fun, but exhausting!
Our time in Tokyo was really only meant to be a base for the day trips we wanted to take outside of Tokyo. Our next stop was Kamakura, a town famous for the second-largest Buddha in Japan. We hadn't made it to Kamakura last time, so we were very happy to make it this time.
While Kamakura has a very famous festival, we missed it by a week - it starts the day before we leave. Oh, well, next time. :-) However, Kamakura is far from boring, and it was probably the place where we saw the largest amount of tourists since we had arrived (other than the penis festival, that is).
Our first stop was one of the famous shrines in Kamakura, Hase-dera, and it was gorgeous. Sophie got to use her new shoes again, though she still isn't that used to them. She loved the rocks. We go and show her beautiful gardens with wonderful flowers and plants and shrines, and she only wants to play in the rocks. :-)
Walking through Kamakura was fun to begin with, the streets lined with many cute shops and boutiques, and of course the 100 Yen shop that Talia wanted to go to was closed. Oh, well.
Our next stop was the famous Amida Buddha statue at Kotoku-in. Apparently this Buddha had been in a structure that was destroyed by a Tsunami in the late 15th century, but the Buddha remained standing, and the building around it was never rebuilt.
Sophie had, blessedly, fallen asleep while we were visiting the great Buddha, that's why she isn't in the picture - we didn't forget about her. ;-) A really nice Australian family took the picture for us, and the daughter gave Sophie a game that they got in a Happy Meal from McDonald's (bringing our tally of McDonald's Happy Meal games to 2 out of 0 meals that we had ordered).
We chatted for a while about our travels and then went to have lunch, where something very odd was on the menu. We have yet to figure out what those are...
We have to mention the subway in Kamakura - it is a very old-fashioned train, and we loved it! It was just very quaint, and even though surely that wasn't the purpose, it was fun feeling like we were going backwards in time.
After lunch, we headed back to the train station and walked over to nearby Danzakura, which leads up to a temple, to see the sakura, but we had missed it by a few days, and while beautiful, the trees were barren. So we turned back, after hunting for yet another lost pacifier. May it rest in peace in the mouth of a Japanese baby, amen.
The train station in Kamakura is really funny. While it's great that they have so many elevators and escalators, especially for such a small town, some of them are quite ridiculous, covering only 7 stairs!
Our final stop for the day, on the way back to Tokyo, was Yokohama again to visit the local China Town. The area was very pretty and they had a lot of interesting items on sale, however they do not know how to be a proper China Town and their prices were sky high! We did, however, buy Sophie a costume for next year, so yey!
The highlight of China Town was running into the shooting of a really weird sci-fi movie. While Talia comes from the industry, it was still tons of fun to watch, especially since it was basically a kung fu movie without any sound. :-)
Pictures from Kamakura and Yokohama: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152718156235364.1073741836.906005363&type=3
