What do you say about a city that is only a stone's throw away from one of the heaviest populated and modernized cities on earth, yet looks, smells, feels like it is a million miles and a hundred years apart from Tokyo?  You can only say beautiful flowery things.

An hour and a half from Chiba City on the Express Train, Kamakura has over 70 temples and shrines nestled in the middle of quiet neighborhoods and tucked into tree covered hillsides and mountains.  The most famous resident and oldest of Kamakura (born in 1252), has some of the largest feet in the world, never moves, always looks calm, and only survivor of a 1495 tidal wave which for all intents and purposes washed away the town.  The Daibutsu or Great Buddha, is a popular person to take a picture of. 

However on my tour of the temples, the one that I liked the most was off the beaten path.   If the twisty roads unnamed roads Kamakura are difficult to navigate for someone like me who speaks and reads a little Japanese, you know that they are a hairsbreadth away from impossible for someone who doesn't know the language.
 

Usually, I look for Japanese tourists and follow them to the hidden great temples that are not frequented by foreigner just because they are hard to find. they are unlisted in the travel guides handed out at Narita airport.  This time I trudged up hills, walked down narrow sidewalks, and waded through a group of Elementary school students just released into traffic from school to find a small Zen temple called Hokokuji.

 Known for its bamboo grove, the Temple lay hidden in the back of a nondescript neighborhood. 

Having spent the past eleven months, sleeping on a tatami floor, the sight of the tall bamboo trees was impressive.  However while walking down a carefully crafted stone pathway, I noticed more than the beauty of the grove, I tasted the silent peace, that the founding member of the Sect must have drunk as the composed

Chinese poems.  The smell of green and the faint scent of some mysterious incense clung in the late afternoon air as I paused to admire small statues. 

In the rear of the grove next to a small waterfall, there was a small hut where to older Japanese women served Japanese tea in a wooden bowl alongside a sweet candy to cut the bitterness of the drink.  Not the stuff that came from a tea bag. The hot frothy liquid  came from green tea leaves were dried and then ground into a powder. For the most part, this kind of powered green tea was mainly used for ceremonial purposes in temples.  The tradition of making green tea powder and performing the tea ceremony is still taught in some junior high and high schools in Japan.  We sat with a group of Japanese women and enjoyed the sound of water and the faint stirring of the wind through the trees.

A petite journey into Japan's past left me with a feeling of nostalgia.  The wish to have seen what life was like in this town before Matthew Perry came into the harbor and opened Japan to the West.  I have no doubt that many of the thousands of Japanese tourists that flock to places like Kamakura and Kyoto, cities that hold memories of tradition, history, that have roots that can be seen share my feelings.  Come on a sunny weekday and wander, but be forewarned don't come on a weekend or Festival day unless you want to journey into Japan's past with the click of cameras and the high pitched voice of a tour group's uniformed leader.