We’ve been loving hiking here and we were told Kamakura has some good trails where you could also see their shrines and temples. With the help of google maps and the All Trails app we found this route and gave it a go.
We knew we were going to love this hike from the beginning after walking out of the train station and already running into beautiful scenery.
We started this hike by walking to Jochiji Temple from the train station. This historical site was built in 1281 and is one of Kamakura’s Great Zen Temples. It was a beautiful temple that with an impressive entrance with a well and beautiful stairs, the inside had stretches of bamboo to walk through and a Japanese cemetery.
After leaving the temple we continued on the trail. It went off a paved path to more of a forest trail with lots of roots for Jeffrey to jump over and stairs to climb.
We stopped for lunch by the Kuzuharaoka Shrine. There were some aggressive birds snatching food from folks. It’s a pretty common thing for birds to do that here. It can be kind of comical but these ones were pretty aggressive and quite large so kind of scary too.
This was terrifying!
We toured Kuzuharaoka Shrine after we ate. This shrine was built in 1887 and is dedicated to Hino Toshimoto (more about him later). Apparently, this shrine is famous for fulfilling dreams of love. That explains the heart shaped ema (small wooden plaques that people write prayers or wishes on). It was a smaller shrine area but it was nice and had some koi the boys love watching.
We continued our hike after our shrine visit. Near the shrine was Grave of Hino Toshimoto. His story is from the 1330s, he was a court noble who was loyal to the emperor in Kyoto and tried to help overthrow the Kamakura Shogunate at the time. He wasn’t successful and was executed. It wasn’t until the 1880s that his efforts were appreciated, the shrine was built in his honor to recognize his loyal spirit.
There were a lot of offshoots in the area including a nice park area. We probably could have been in that area exploring for hours, but we continued our hike through some residential areas, then on to more woodsy trails.
The trail ended right by the Buddhist temple, Kōtoku-in. This temple holds the Great Buddha of Kamakura, a huge copper buddha statue. This statue was built in 1252 and is 11.3 m (37 ft) tall and weighs 121 tons.
We had some grumpy kiddos at this temple, so we stopped for some ice cream. Ice cream makes everything better.
Our last stop was my favorite, Hasedera Temple. This temple was built in 736 to enshrine a Kannon (buddhist goddess of mercy) statue that was carved from a sacred tree. The statue was carved in 721, 1300 years ago! The temple ground had a lot of foliage and a scenic observation platform. It was so pretty. It has one area full of hydrangeas, they weren’t in bloom yet, next year we will go back to try to catch the blooms, I imagine it would be beautiful.
After Hasedera, we continued on to the nearby train station and headed home. Such a fun hiking day!
BRB, Out to Japan – Jackie
Beautiful! Love the mask on the statue… 😷😄
Wonderful photo-journalistic eye and commentary!!
Nice!
Thank you so much for sharing your adventures! So beautiful!!
I am curious if conversation about idols ever comes up with the boys?
Wow!! Beautiful!!
Love those ice cream smiles!!!❤️