Kamakura Trip... I am VERY tired

So, this weekend we went on a class trip to Kamakura, and boy am I tired. Saturday (I guess that was yesterday... man that seems so long ago), we went to school for a lecture about the historical and religious significance of the places we were going to visit on our trip. In order to get all of that info stuffed into our brains, we had to be there at 8:30 in the morning... a good 2-3 hours before I even think about going on a normal day. That was an early morning. We finally got to get on the trains at 12:30 I felt like part of a herd of wilda-americans.

Enoshima was our first stop. It's an island off the coast of Kamakura (which used to be the capital of Japan before Kyoto... something about 1192... something about the begining of the shogunate government... the assassination of the Minamoto line?? something.... anyway, back to the story). On Enoshima, there are 3 main shrines and a couple of caves with religious significance (something about 3 goddesses and a dragon??).

The following pics are from the main shrine on Enoshima (Nakatsu no miya):

This was the tori gate at the enterance to this shrine. There were a lot of stairs. (so many in fact that the school bought us escalator tickets for the way up)

This is a pic of Becca and me... I'm no good at taking pics of myself...

This is were you hang your wishes on wood plates that you can buy at the shrine. They traditionally have horses on them because in order to make a very powerful wish you donate a horse to the shrine... but that's not very practical anymore, so they do paintings instead. But most of these had cows, because this year is the year of the bull.

So, interesting fact: at temples, they often have fortune telling services. It generally works on an honor system where you drop your money into a box, and then pick out your folded strip of paper, on which your fortune is written. But more often than not, the fortunes are bad. Which is kinda cool, I mean, at least they're trying to be realistic. But many people don't like their fortune, so they used to tie them to the nearby trees to get rid of their bad luck. Eventually the shrines got tired of this practice and put up these lines to tie the fortunes to. Kinda cool, huh.

After the shrines and temples, we went to the Samuel Cocking botanical garden. It was destroyed in a major earthquake a while ago (like maybe in the 60's or so??), but they've replanted some of the plants. They reminded me of home.

This one reminded me of my friend Elisabeth. She absolutely loves violets. (here's a link to her mostly crafty blog ^_^ http://lindenflower.wordpress.com/ )

This sign says beware of hawks!! And it's true! I think I saw more hawks that day than I've ever seen before in my whole life! there were dozens of them... all at once! Cool, and creepy, all at the same time.

We saw most of them from the tower in the middle of the gardens. It provided a really pretty view of Enoshima island!

In the center here, is picture of the giant aloe-vera-esque plants that only bloom once every 50 years. And sadness... these ones bloomed last year, so I can't see these bloom until I'm 70 o.O

Looking back towards the mainland...

These little octopi were being sold on sticks. 4 critters for 100 yen... it made me sad. But then, one of my classmates bought a stick D: anyway, he said that they were yummy until the last one, which was apparently bad. Serves him right for eating things that were so cute!!!

Anyway, after that, we went to the Ryokkan (japanese style hotel) for dinner. Yum!