On our last day in Kamakura, we continued exploring the city on foot and visited a few more temples located within 20 minutes from our hotel. Our first stop was Anyouin Temple, a Buddhist temple completed in 1225. It was built by Masako Hojo to pray for the repose of her departed husband Minamoto no Yoritomo. It is famous for its gardens full of beautiful azalea bushes, which attract a lot of visitors when in bloom. A few of them were just starting to flower for us and we enjoyed walking through the peaceful grounds.
Our second stop was a pretty Buddhist temple called Myohonji. This temple was founded in 1253 by the Japanese Buddhist priest and philosopher Nichiren, founder of the Nichiren Buddhism branch. Different than Zen Buddhism, it is based on the Lotus Sutra and the belief that its recitation leads to enlightenment. In this temple, it was possible to book a reservation to join a class to copy a sutra by hand but we did not have that experience.
The temple grounds featured some amazing mossy staircases. The staircases climbed high up the hills which were covered in Japanese shaga irises and ferns. One of the buildings, the Hall of Scriptures, was built in the early 1800s using the most amazing wood joinery. After climbing all the mossy stairs, we were rewarded with great final views of Kamakura. We were told that on a clear day Mt. Fuji might be visible from up there.
While wandering through little neighborhood streets on our way back to the town center, we came across a cute little café called Cafe Junxion. It was run by a young lady who made us delicious poke bowls for lunch, warm malasadas (Portuguese style donuts) and crêpes for dessert. She was very charming and asked to take our picture for her instagram account promoting her café.
After lunch we decided to visit the Kamakura Museum of History and Culture. This was a great way for us to better understand the history of everything we saw during our stay in this neat city. The museum had a lot of interesting artifacts, artwork and educational exhibits. We were welcomed by an older gentlemen who was overjoyed to demonstrate his French language skills to Sophie once he discovered she was from France. He gave us a full orientation of the museum, making sure to point out all the interactive exhibits that were in English. We recognized several of the temples and scenes in the old Japanese-style paintings, which was very cool to see.
As an example of how courteous and sweet the Japanese can be, the gentleman who welcomed us came to find us as we were finishing our visit with an umbrella in hand. He said it had started to rain and he noticed we did not have an umbrella when we arrived. He downplayed his gesture by telling us it was his “old” umbrella – and he would be happy to give it to us. We explained that we actually did have travel umbrellas with us in our backpacks, so he didn’t have to worry about us. We were really touched by his generosity and caring (it was barely a mist coming down), and it was another example of how amazingly we were treated by the Japanese people during our stay.
One of the things we enjoyed the most about Kamakura was how easy it was to walk everywhere and explore the little neighborhoods and streets. Japan is very safe in general, and Kamakura felt even more so because of its smaller size. It was fun to see the different architecture of homes, the cars they were driving, the gardens and flowers they planted, etc. The weather was lovely in April there and all the spring blooms were a delight to see.
After the museum, we collected our bags from our hotel and took the train back to the Haneda airport near Tokyo. We were spending the night at the Villa Fontaine hotel which was connected to the airport, as we had a morning flight home the next day. We ate our last Japanese supper at a Kaiseki-style restaurant in the airport. We chose a fish menu that was a feast for the eyes and the taste buds, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
The next morning we flew American Airlines to Los Angeles, then took a connecting flight to Minneapolis. We had been gone exactly 60 days, which seemed like the right amount for our kind of traveling. We were both sad to be done but happy to be home as well. It was another amazing adventure and we felt a little more like seasoned travelers this time around. We are so fortunate and very grateful to be able to do such things together and truly enjoyed discovering more parts of the world.
Compared to our 2023 South East Asia trip, we tried to spend more time this year in each destination, which gave us a more relaxed pace. We didn’t feel we had to cram too much in each day, we were able to slow down and just enjoy temporarily living in a given country. We often get asked what was our favorite place to visit, and for us this year this would be: (1) New Zealand, (2) Japan and (3) Thailand. We hope to go back again to all three of these countries to continue venturing into more areas where we have not been yet. We also have a lot left to explore in Australia and South East Asia, including Laos, Borneo, the Philippines and more of Cambodia and Vietnam. There is always next year… France and Ireland will be our next destinations though!
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