Japan Trip Day 8: Kamakura, Akihabara, Tokyo Skytree

Kamakura is my mother's request. Although she is not coming for this trip, since I already spent time researching how to go and what to see, I decided not to waste the effort. There is a direct train from Shinagawa and it takes about half an hour so it is quite convenient to visit.

There are many temples and gardens in Kamakura although the most famous attraction is the Giant Buddha. In the interest of time, I decided to just take a look at Giant Buddha. The location is actually called Kotokuin Temple. I thought Giant Buddha will make Kamakura quite a major place to visit so I am quite surprised that road signs are still mostly using Kanji and there is still minimum English. With that, navigating the area is not that easy without proper preparation and I decided to walk to Kotokuin from Kamakura station. Actually the temples and gardens are within walking distance although the time taken can be 45-60 minutes. Lol. I would actually enjoy a relaxing stroll as it still feels like a traditional Japanese environment but it was rather hot today and my sunburn skin was not in the best condition to really enjoy the stroll.

I find the Giant Buddha quite underwhelming as it is not as gigantic as I imagine. The temple area is quite small too. Perhaps one highlight is that people can actually go inside the Buddha statue although there is nothing to see inside. Honestly, I think Borobudur Temple is still more amazing than this. No offence intended.

Those promo images never show the people giving the false impression that the Buddha statue is really gigantic

We continued the trip to Hase station to take Enoden to the Kamakura-koko-mae station which is famous as the rail station next to the beach. I don't know if my expectations and imagination run too wild but I find the real thing is not as romantic as what those anime/manga/drama/TV depict and it is a rare chance to take pictures with all the elements: the train (which is not so frequent), the track, the road, and the sea together.

View from platform of Kamakura-koko-mae station

However I find the Enoden stations are unique. Some stations are pretty small with only 1 platform and 1 track which is not a problem for alternating trains to both directions since the train frequency is quite low. Some stations do not have gantry but they have standing machines to tap our train cards. I find it quite refreshing to see these differences from the modern Japan.

As I am typing this, I only discover that I missed the famous spot. From the station, I walked along the road towards Enoshima island but the famous spot is actually up the hill near the school which is at the opposite direction. Oh well.. No wonder I did not really see tourists along the way.

I did not enjoy the walk towards Enoshima island. The beach is not pretty, the weather was hot, and I did not expect the actual distance was THAT long. It was quite stresful too that the direction signs are all in Kanji and I had no idea how far more to walk or if I lost my way. From map, I thought the distance was reasonable. Because of all of these, I decided not to walk across the bridge to Enoshima island but to find the nearest train station to back to Tokyo. Lol.

We took train back to Kamakura station as my sister wanted to get a tumbler from a Starbucks that we passed by earlier when we walked towards Kotokuin. This seems to be an 'atas' Starbucks since there was a staff helping us to find seat when we entered. Because of the heat, I decided to get a drink and a sandwich for lunch. Perhaps that was my first Starbucks in Japan since my first time visiting Japan in 2015. Near the station, I had a level 5 matcha ice cream. The higher level means more bitter/concentrated matcha. I am not too particular about food taste but with the heat just now, any ice cream would be nice.

I spent the afternoon at Akihabara again because I had not explored the blocks towards Don Quijote. I found that there was another Surugaya store here which sells Kazuya Mizuki figure for 5000 yen. This is really tempting as I have been trying to find this online but cannot find it especially at this price. I also found Heero & Relena figurine that I bought last year in Osaka here being sold for 2000 yen cheaper because of the box condition. Aaargh!!! Well these were put in kiv again as I still want to check out Nakano Broadway tomorrow. It is difficult to kiv things as they may be sold but at the same time what if I find something better but I already have not enough luggage space. Gosh.. Anyway Hinata figurine at Lashinbang was already sold and now Oikawa is available. Looks like something from my kiv list yesterday is gone now as I do not want to get only Kageyama without Hinata.

My loot from Akihabara today is less than yesterday. I only bought from Amiami shop today: Cloud and Zidane mini plush (1750 yen each) and Yusuke Urameshi Manga Structure Set (1340 yen).

I had dinner at MOS burger and I decided to get Christopher Robin plushie from Disney Store. I googled Disney Stores in Tokyo and I decided to go to Tokyo Solamachi. Tokyo Solamachi is near Tokyo Skytree and I had not been there before. It is not too far from Akihabara and there is a direct train to Shinagawa so it is a good new place to explore.

Tokyo Skytree is not exactly convenient to reach so I did not really explore the area. I did not even see the Tokyo Skytree and the area was already quite quiet at 730pm. Tokyo Solamachi is quite a nice shopping mall so next time I will have to explore this area. At the Tokyo Banana shop here, I saw Tokyo Banana cheese cake -something that I saw for the first time so obviously I bought a few boxes. Tomorrow is already my last day so it is a matter of time to start thinking of souvenirs.