So my friend and I are totally into shrines & temples, so we decided to spend the day in Kamakura and Enoshima. We bought the Kamakura/Enoshima Pass for the JR train. It cost ¥1,970, it’s valid for 2 days, and it gives you transporation to and from Kamakura/Enoshima, plus unlimited use of the local trains in Kamakura and Enoshima. We only used it for one day, but we definitely used the trains enough to make the ticket totally worth it.
Like all tourists that go to Kamakura, we started off at the gigantic statue of Buddha, aka the 大仏(dai butsu). We also got to see the inside of the statue, which was pretty cool if you’re a nerd like me.

Then we stopped by the nearby 長谷寺(hasedera), which has the biggest wooden statue in Japan or something. I wasn’t allowed to take a photo of it though. I accidentally took a photo of another statue that I wasn’t supposed to, and our day pretty much became difficult from then on, so I deleted the photo to make the bad karma go away haha.

There was a small grotto with a bunch of statues of benzaiten. Very cool.

So cute!

After a small break, we went back to the train station to make our way to the 銭荒い弁天 (zeniarai benten). They say that if you wash your money in the water at the shrine and spend it, it will come back to you two-fold. We only washed our coins though, because you’re supposed to let the money dry naturally, and I didn’t really want a wet wallet. However, because of misleading Japanese maps, and our ability to go the COMPLETELY wrong way when there’s an obvious sign in front of us, finding this shrine took a lot of work. We seriously had to work for our money…which included climbing the steepest hill I’ve ever climbed in my life. I know Kamakura is a mountain town…but still. I was dying. And then it started to rain from this point on. I think the deity at 長谷寺 was mad at us for taking pictures of it.
Old school train that took us to our money-washing journey of DOOM

If only this photo showed you the steep hill we climbed to reach this point

About to wash our coins

We also bought お守り (protection charms) from here. A Shinto priestess strikes sparks over the charm to increase it’s power or something.
For luck with money! Sadly, I don’t think it’s working.

Hello Kitty! I don’t think it does anything in particular…and I sort of spilled iced tea on it earlier today…”

So afterwards, we decided to make our way to the train station to find the next shrine we wanted to check out. After wandering through small neighbourhood roads, we decided to follow some people who looked like they knew where they were going. We were wrong. Very wrong. We ended up at a shrine with so many stairs that we both wanted to cry. Nice view though.
The roads and fences look old school, but people in Kamakura are LOADED. So many huge houses and luxury cars.

From the top of the neverending stairs

After wandering around a huge train station, and being given the wrong directions more than once, we finally ended up at our next destination, the Taya Caverns. It was REALLY nice here. The caves were basically carved by monks and it was used as a place for meditation and spiritual training. We got a candle at the front and used it to go through the caves. Sadly, no pictures allowed. But I took a picture of the front of the cave.

Quick shot of a hasekannon statue. We wanted to go see it, but it was up a steep hill, and it cost money to go in. We’ll check it out the next time we return.

We ended up stopping by a bunch of other shrines, but they all cost money to get in. On top of the money we spent getting into the first few shrines, we didn’t want to keep paying to get in. It wouldn’t have been too bad if entrance was 100yen for each shrine/temple, but everything was 300-400yen, which builds up really fast considering the number of shrines and temples in the area. We’ll have to go back and check out the places we didn’t get to.
So after that, we made our way to Enoshima (where we once again took a wrong turn…it seemed to be the theme of the day)
The birdies outside Enoshima station had rain coats!

Enoshima shrine. Since we got here pretty late in the day, most of the shrine was closed and we didn’t get to see everything. Another thing I’ll have to return to see. Also. Stairs. Holy crap there were so many stairs. This picture shows just one of the 5+ long staircases that we climbed…and we didn’t even go to the top.

View from Enoshima Shrine

We finished off our day with むらさきいも ice cream, which is basically purple sweet potato ice cream. SOOOO good. And then we had dinner at First Kitchen. Nothing like topping off ice cream with junk food!
It looks white here, but it was really purple.

First Kitchen!

Okay…next!