Another Early Morning in Kamakura

It's been a while since my last solo excursion into the great wide open to shoot photos. So on Saturday night, I set my alarm for 05:00AM with the intention of heading to Kamakura the next morning.

Rolling out of bed was surprisingly easy on Sunday morning. I actually woke up several times throughout the night, excited about the early morning adventure, like a child on Christmas morning. So when my alarm went off as scheduled, I ran downstairs, performed a fast-forward version of my morning routine, then headed out for Maborikaigan Station. I've never been a morning person, but I love this time of morning in Japan. As the sun is rising, there are very few people out on the street and even the busy Japanese cities so close to Tokyo and Yokohama seem desolate. The only sound, as far as my ears could hear, was the early morning chirping of the summertime cicadas.

As usual, it took about an hour to get to Kamakura from the house, since the journey includes a short walk between Shioiri Station on the Keikyu Line and JR's Yokosuka Station; not to mention the waiting I had to do for trains at each station. I got to Kamakura a little past 06:30AM and headed out the west exit - away from all the typical Kamakura tourist locations - and headed towards Sasuke Inari Shrine and Zeniarai Benten Shrine. A bit about each:

Sasuke Inari Shrine: Built around 1195AD, this lesser known shrine is dedicated to Inari, the harvest Shinto god, who as legend has it came to Minamoto Yoritomo in a dream and advised him to build an army while in exile in Izu and overthrow a rival Clan. For more on the history, click here.

They could probably change the name of this place to Spider Inari Shrine, because the only other living things that appeared to have visited this shrine all summer were Japan's famous large colorful spiders. As some of you may know, I'm not a big fan of spiders, but I braved the web-covered pathway and saw a very interesting shrine. The place reminds me of Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto, with all of the torii gates lined up, but on a much smaller scale. The Inari god must have a thing for foxes, because both Fushimi Inari and Sasuke Inari are filled with them.

Zeniarai Benten Shrine: One of the more popular shrines in Kamakura, Zeniarai Benten was also inspired by a dream of Minamoto Yoritomo, in which a Shinto god recommended he build the shrine to bring peace to the country (seems like these two dreams have conflicting gods). For more, click here.

Zeniarai means "coin washing", and one of the popular things to do at the shrine is to take one's money and wash it in one of the natural springs within the shrine's large cave. Legend has it that the money that is washed here will double, so many people have been seen washing large denomination paper money, even though zeniarai means "coin washing", not "money/bill washing". It's a fun little tradition, so I gave it a try and I will keep you posted if I get rich. On a side note, I actually washed both my Japanese Yen and my American coins that I had on hand. My logic was that maybe it would work for both denominations. We will see...

More pictures are in our Gallery - you'll find them in the 08/28/2006 category. Enjoy!