Date & Time: Saturday, September 29, 11:00a.m. − 3:30 p.m.
Spots: Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shirine, Hasedera Temple, Kotoku−in Temple
Visitors: Two senior couples in their 80’s from California,USA
Attendant: 1KSGG member
Language: English
Mr. and Mrs. Benner are a perfect couple who met at work and were both thinking of the flowering period of cherry blossoms, azaleas and lotus at Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine. The other couple, Hoffman and Elaine are a very affectionate couple holding hands all the time. Hoffman gave up going to the main hall of Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine due to problems with his knee but, at Hasedea Temple, managed to walk up the stairs by holding the handrails and saw the Amida or Amitabha and the Eleven Headed Kannon.
All of them had a bowl of hot udon (thick white noodles) for lunch at a Japanese restaurant in front of Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine, saying the soup was really good.
In the afternoon, we took buses to go to all the spots, but they had difficulty in paying the bus fare when getting off the bus. Mr. Benner liked the statues of Nio (the Two Deva Kings) at the temple gate very much and had his picture taken posing like Nio. He looked like Nio in the picture. They were all very lively and gentle. I really enjoyed my first guiding.