Friday, March 18, 2016

Night Birds

We spent a day in Kamakura, which is an amazing city. Lots of things to see and do, and there is something for everyone. Down a little street, on the third floor of a building, there is a place where you can do something not very many people get to do: pet owls. They have almost 20 different species of owls, and you can pet all of them. They have a large room set up as a forest, and each owl is tethered to a tree, so you can walk tree to tree in this forest and visit the owls. It's a lot of fun. They are incredibly soft and have the most amazing expressions.




















That same day, we took a local guided tour of the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shinto Shrine. Before you enter any shrine or temple, you must cleanse your hands and mouth with water. Our guide showed us how to do this, and we bowed and cleansed ourselves before climbing the tall stairs to the shrine.



A short jaunt from Kamakura is the Kotoku-in Temple where the Great Buddha lives. This statue of Buddha is the second largest in all of Japan. He is 43ft tall and made of bronze. He was once coated in gold, but over the centuries that has slowly disappeared.
 

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