Kamakura, Japan

Kamakura (kah-mah-koor-ah) is a city in Japan (surprise, surprise), located about an hour just outside Tokyo.  It's a very small town, but one of the highest concentration of temples in Japan.  The vast majority of these temples are Buddhist - 65 in all.  In addition, there are 19 shrines, all packed into a small geographic area.  From what I understand, these temples were founded starting about 800 years ago.

The most famous in Kamakura is called the Daibutsu.  This temple holds a GIANT Buddha statue.  This thing was huge.  It's about 40 feet high, and weighs over 100 tons.  It's made of bronze:

To give you a better perspective on the size, here's a picture with people in it:

It's impressive, to say the least.  It was built in the 13th century and the statue itself is called daibutsu or literally big thing.   You'll find daibutsu at several locations throughout Japan. However, the daibutsu at Kamakura is one of the two most-famous in the country (the second is still on my list of things to see - but I never seem to get outside Tokyo these days!).

Initially the statue was housed in a large wood building, but this was washed away by flood twice, in the 14th and 15th centuries, leaving only the bronze statue behind.  I think the people decided that Buddha didn't want the building around ; )

The great thing about Kamakura is that you can pretty much get everywhere you need to go on foot.  Now, trying to see a number of temples in a single day is a real challenge, but it can be done on foot.  You'd better have awesome walking shoes and be in decent shape.

Another great temple is Takei-ji.  The Shokozan Tokeiji temple was founded in 1285.  It was built specifically as a sanctuary for women seeking divorce - and continued as a sanctuary for 600 years:

Also a Buddhist temple, you can find a large statue of Buddha at Tokei-ji:

The tradition holds that if a woman served as a nun here at Shokozan Takeiji for 3 years - she could be declared divorced.  Ouch.  I think we can all agree that women have had a rough history in all parts of the world - Japan is no exception.

Another great temple can be found at Kakuon-ji.  This particular temple was founded around 1218.

This is a beautiful temple, surrounded by a peaceful forest.  I love the tranquility that you find at these sacred locations.  I happened to be traveling with some of my more rambunctious employees on this visit, so it wasn't quite as quiet as I've experienced at other temples in Japan.  Perhaps next time.... ; )