What do you get when you mix a giant Buddha, a volcanic beach and a Fourth of July holiday? An excellent weekend away, that’s what.
We celebrated our American independence by booking ourselves into a beachside hotel in Kamakura, a seaside town roughly an hour south of Tokyo. We travelled by train, so it was more like 2 1/2 hours away, but for this Ohio girl, that’s still a really, really short distance to arrive at the ocean. Kamakura Station is an easy hour ride from Shinjuku Station.
Kamakura is a great little town with a beachy, relaxed vibe. It’s also home to a tremendous number of shrines and temples which my six-year-old and I explored back in March for a short overnight trip. This time around, my husband, son and I chose only to visit the Great Buddha, or, Kamakura Daibutsu. It’s a massive copper Buddha. I truly mean massive: It weighs 121 tons and is roughly 43 feet tall. It’s also impressively, impossibly, old. Construction began in 1252. Since then, it has serenely survived earthquakes, typhoons, world wars and countless tourists and pilgrims.
Liam was ecstatic to get to play in the sand at the beach near our hotel. A few toys from the 100 yen shop, a stick or two, and plenty of waves kept him busy. We all enjoyed watching the surfers take advantage of the mild waves. A few managed to stand on their boards now and then when a bigger wave rolled through. We finished that night by viewing a dramatic sunset with Mt. Fuji in the leading role.
Exploring Kamakura was easy, thanks to a tram-like light rail that winds its way through the city and along the coast. They were charming but crowded. Very near Kamakura is a small island, connected to the mainland by a bridge, called Enoshima. One of our evenings, we walked out on the bridge but opted not to go all the way out to the island, which is also a popular tourist spot for its shrines and views. The island looks like a lush green mass popping up out of the ocean.
On either side of the bridge there are beaches on the mainland. We took the tram railway out late one afternoon and explored the area, partially in an attempt to make a plan for the next day. There’s a long row of beach huts that offer shade, refreshments, lockers and showers for a fee. We scoped out which one we wanted to use – in large part because I was able to translate the posted fees using my Google translate app on my iPhone – and absorbed the atmosphere. One side had a sidewalk with plenty of steps for people watching and the other faced the beach. Unfortunately, the shacks don’t have toilets so you have to trek to public ones a little more inland. (We would have opted to swim closer to the hotel but there were no beachside toilets and showers and no chance of shade.)
We’re used to a fairly conservative culture here. At a family waterpark we went to a few weeks ago, many of the Japanese moms not only wore one-piece suits with swim shorts, but quite a few even sported light-weight jackets and hoodies. (In the water!) You don’t see tattoos very often and they are usually banned at pools, water parks and onsens. But at the beach? At least this beach? Anything goes. Lots of tattoos on view and quite a few bikinis.
We took a nice stroll along the shore before grabbing dinner at a Hawaiian-themed restaurant. (There are a lot of Hawaiian-themed restaurants in Kamakura.) Afterwards, we walked out onto the bridge leading to Enoshima Island for the sunset.
We returned the next day for our Fourth of July day of beach fun. We rented a couple of beach chairs and an umbrella to provide a little respite from the sun. It was a Monday, so not terribly crowded, and there’s a nice, large expanse of sand. It’s also very, very sticky sand. We were glad at the end of the day that we had shelled out the cash for our hut’s showers.