june 8

Today I woke up at 910am with a start. I forgot to set my alarm to go off on Sunday, it was still set to Saturday. I was dreaming about being chased by a tiger. I went down to the lobby at 930 with coffee and cake in hand. I met naoko and we started heading toward shinagawa station. I was drinking my coffee, and when we got to the station I ate the cake. It was not cinnamon like I thought. It was more bready than I thought and it was buttery swirled around. So I will not buy again. Naoko told me that dark green is mi-do-ri, like a midori sour, and that yellow was ki-ro, and light green is a mix of the two, ki-mi-do-ri.

Brandon and miho arrived and we headed to the train to go to kita-kamakura. It takes 55 min to get there. And when we did there was only one exit gate. It took about 5 minutes. We started walking toward meigetsu-in temple. We first stopped in this little house that was an art gallery kinda. Yoh shomei museum. I bought a postcard of a little humming elephant. It was really cute. Meigetsu-in has many beautiful hydrangeas, a stone garden. We walked around for a bit and took pictures. Then we went to eat lunch at a noodle restaurant. I wanted to eat hot udon with yam, but got cold udon with egg on top. It was ok, but I don’t think I’ll be ordering udon again. I’d rather have soba.

Next we went to kencho-ji temple. It was very near to the high school. It had a really cool dragon mural painted on the ceiling in one of the buildings. There are buckets to throw coins in for donation and prayer. There are different ways to show respect and it tells you to clap or bow so many times.

Next was talking the train to hase line to get a snack and see big Buddha. We ate at ovale, a non-japanese style sweet shop. Miho got crème brulee, I got Madeline cake with brulee cream, Brandon got chiffon cake and naoko got macha cake. They were all delicious. We left and were walking down the street and we passed by a kimono shop. The one outside was very cute and miho and naoko asked how much they were. Miho said that they could range and that I could wait to go to asaksa and ueno. They might not be that great of quality but they would be cheaper. So we go inside and we say that I would like to spend only 10000 yen on the robe. She pulled out things that were too busy or too plain. I didn’t really like the color. Then they asked what I liked and I said I liked the one outside. It was light blue with little birds on it. Simple. So we go outside and she says that that is the only one. Can I have this one. Yes. She thought that maybe it was too small, so I try it on, and it’s ok! The hard part was picking the obi. I thought maybe a simple brown one, but it was too dark. There was a blue striped, and orange, and magenta. The magenta turned out to be the best. The kimono was 6000 yen and obi was 4200 but she gave me a really great deal and cut down the price because it had been outside and got faded. I was very excited!

The only problem was that we had to run to big Buddha. We got to the train station at 530p. big Buddha closes at 6pm. The train came and when we got off, we started running. It was supposed to take 12 minutes walking. We got there at 545pm and it was worth the hustle and bustle. It was really amazing! Just wow! It was very cool! We took many pictures and then went to the gift shop. I got a little Buddha statue and a post card. We walked back to kamakura and ate dinner at a little shop. We went there to get this chicken rice omlet but because we got there late, there was only one left. Brandon got it and I got tofu soup with rice. It wasn’t that great, but I had sauce to put on it, so ok. We left and there was a cookie shop underneath. Very popular in kamakura. Shaped like a dove. I bought one for us to share but it wasn’t anything that great. Shrug. We took the train home and walked back to the dorm. maria was supposed to come over to talk, but maybe we didn’t communicate correctly. Hopefully I will see her tomorrow.