Date & Time: Friday, Mach 29, 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Spots: Kotokuin Temple(Great Buddha), Hasedera Temple, Tsurugaoka Hachimangu
Shrine, Hokokuji Temple
Visitors: An Israeli Couple
Attendant: 1 KSGG member
Language: English
A couple in their seventies visited Japan all the way from Israel to enjoy cherry blossoms.
They visited Kyoto a week before,where they missed seeing cherry blossoms blooming,
which made them very disappointed . On the day of our tour around Kamakura, the warm weather in the last few days just turned out to be cold, and we could not yet enjoy cherry blossoms in full bloom. As the husband has some trouble with his leg, we used a cab on our tour wherever it was available. In the temples and shrine, I
managed to keep our walking in the precinct to a minimum. Although we did not see everything, they took many photos of cherry blossoms in Kotokuin Temple and were much impressed by the Great Buddha with its compassionate look. We then moved to Hasedera Temple where boke-no-hana ( Japanese quince) were all out beautifully. They really enjoyed it and also appreciated the dry landscape garden in front of the room in which people do hand copying of sutras. As we visited Hokokuji Temple during lunch time to escape from the crowd of visitors, we were able to have a leisurely time, walking around its bamboo garden and having matcha tea ( powdered green tea)
there without any waiting time. Elga loved matcha and was enthusiastically taking photos of a woman making tea with a tea whisk. We had a late lunch at a Japanese noodles restaurant. They had tempura-soba (buckwheat noodles in a hot broth with a tempura on top) and tendon (a rice bowl topped with tempura). We chatted a lot about our families during lunch. After having taken photos of cherry blossoms by the Genpei-ike pond near the entrance of Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine, we took a walk along the Komachi-dori street that Elga was very much looking forward to visiting. She dropped in at the souvenir shops one after another looking for something to take back home. She was so busy in shopping and got out of the husband’s sight from time to time. Alain was restless waiting for her. They consulted each other closely about buying souvenirs. I was glad to see a loving couple. I felt very happy when Elga hugged me tightly at Yokohama Station where I saw them off, saying “Thank you very much. It was really a wonderful day!”.