January 2nd and the present

We got up early on the 2nd and caught a train towards Yokohama. We reached Kamakura before 11am and dropped our bags in a 300 yen/day locker. We tried to figure out how long we could spend in the city and still make the last train back to Nagoya, but failed miserably. To solve such a tedious and complex problem as catching the last train was outside of my ability and her patience. The JR station attendant just gave us his time table to figure it out and as it was all in Japanese, Yuka was on her own. The time table was thicker than a phone book, so we agreed that 5pm was a safe and arbitrary number, so we went with that.

We saw the Hase-dera and Daibutsu before returning to the station to grab our bags. The Daibutsu was really cool to see and I took some of my favorite pictures from our trip in front of it. We payed an extra 20 yen and were also able to go inside of the Buddha.

The Hase-dera was also cool. There was an art museum attached to the temple and inside there were 33 hand-carved statues of the reincarnations of the Buddha. There is apparently some text that describes the many forms that Buddha took on, including different demons, a prime minister, women, children, and a half-serpent half-man creature. It made me want to find an English translation of the stories.

There is also a cave located underneath the temple and Yuka and I walked through it. There are statues inside that you can light candles to, asking for specific help in love, business, cooking or whatever, but what I remember clearly were the prayer cards outside of the cave. You can buy and hang wooden plaques near the cave entrance asking Buddha for his help and one in Spanish began: 'Los Goonies nunca dicen 'muerte'... it was unexpectedly awesome.

So then we came home, blah blah blah.

I finished work today at 9pm and that leaves only 4 more days with Nova. Two of those days are only 4-hour shifts and this Thursday I have a dental appointment. Getting my teeth checked was on my 'things that are absolutely necessary to do before leaving Japan' list and it feels good to be getting it done at last. I think I'm 2 or 3 years past where I should have had them checked and if any good will come from this appointment, its that I won't have to have an excruciatingly painful tooth removed by a fist-shaped rock, smashed into my jaw in Vietnam, two months hence.