Tuesday 13 August - Could have been an embarrassment

Oakwood Premier is a sanctuary - just 80M from an entrance to Tokyo Station, but a world away in serenity. Away from the road, and with serious blackout drapes, we are in a world of our own. And so it came to pass that this morning when we got up it was 8.30am (not the necessary 7.30am) - made worse by us not making that discovery until 8.45am, and having a 9.13am train to catch to Kamakura, 1 hour away. Very, very quick shower, breakfast and rush to a distant platform saw us catch the 9.24am train - just saving us from the embarrassment of being late to meet up with our local guide from the Kamakura volunteer guides.
I had made contact some weeks back and Chiyoka Matsumara had taken up the challenge, carefully planning our day to minimise walking, climbing etc.
Had a brief spell in First Class on the train before confirmation that we were Economy. Train progressively filled to the point where it could have been the 8.15am from Essendon - and then everyone got off at Kamakura.
Chiyoka is 60 and has been volunteering in this way for 3 years and travels about 40" each way to get to Kamakura. She was an absolute delight and we hit it off from the start. It costs nothing for the guiding (but you pay any fares, entry fees and food & drinks for your guide).
We first visited Hokokuji which is a small temple of the Rinzai Sect of Zen Buddhism. Very nice manicured gardens, ponds and grounds, but the temple is best known for its forested bamboo grove of more than 2000 towering "shoots" (about 15M tall). It was quite stunning with sun shining through the bamboo. The site also includes a series of shallow caves in the hillsides and which hold the ashes of some of the later Ashikaga lords.
On then to Tsurugaoka Hachimangu which is Kamakura's most important shrine - founded in 1063 and moved to its current site in 1180 by Minamoto Yoritomo, the founder and first shogun of the Kamakura government. The Shrine is reached via a long wide approach through the city centre and with multiple tori gates, with the main hall standing on a terrace at the top of a wide stairway. For new year prayers, more than 2 million attend, and horseback archery events are held in April and September.
Today was another 35C day, but the threatened storm finally arrived just as we entered a Japanese pastry store for lunch. Lunch came and went, and so did the rain. It was off then to the Great Buddha, one of Japan's national treasures. Standing 11.4M high, it is the second tallest bronze Buddha statue in Japan and was cast in 1252, originally in a large temple hall. Since the 15th century, after the hall was destroyed by various typhoons and tsunamis, it has been standing in the open air.
A wander down a street of shops to the Kosokuji Shrine (The Kamakura area has more than 125 of them), but having been "cleansed", "good lucked", "purified etc, etc, we elected not to enter - rather heading for a green tea ice cream!!
Back then to the small local Enoden line tram/train for return to Kamakura (this one was the closest we have come to needing "pushers" to squeeze everyone on).  Chiyoko accompanied us on the return train to Tokyo until her transfer station (and after ensuring we had seats). She was a delight to be with and we thanked her with a book of photos of Melbourne landmarks.
The Oakwood Premier puts on complimentary drinks & food every Tuesday evening for its guests, and this was most enjoyable as we met up with Graham Lawler (English but lives in Germany) and his wife Claudia. Graham is a logistics integrator with Airbus and they are in Tokyo until November as JAL takes delivery of its first Airbus planes. Earlier in the year they spent 2 months in Melbourne with Jetstar taking on some new Airbus planes. Very enjoyable company.
One of my bucket list items in Tokyo is to get to a baseball game and one of the Reception team came down below to the Lawsons Convenience Store, where you can do anything on an ATMlike machine, (but everything is in Japanese) to help me. Job done and I am off to see the Tokyo Yakult Swallows take on the Yokohama DNA Baystars on Wednesday evening.