Tohoku! Shiroishi castle

It has already been a week after we arrived from our Tohoku trip, but I have had my hands full of the new E course and also going through all the 1 200 pictures I had taken, that the posts are coming now one by one, a little bit late! The trip itself seems now like a dream and I could give quite a lot to be able to go back to enjoy it one more time. Small detail before starting the story is that we went by car and also slept in the car. We stayd one night couchsurfing, but all the others we slept in the car. Sentos and onsens were our baths and combini parkinglots our hotels. I'm looking forward to tell you everything!

Our one week Tohoku trip started on Monday morning when we fetched out small rental Suzuki Every from Ookubo, drove back home, inserted the futon to the back of the car and and then we took off around 10:30am. We drove toll road, Tohoku Expresway so that we would be in Ooshu, Iwate, around 8pm. On our way we stopped to eat, but the bigger stop was in Shiroishi, because of the Shiroishi castle (白石城). Before we have visited the Odawara castle near Hakone, but Odawara was something very different. Odawara was a huge vastle that had been almost completely transformed to be a museum, so there was more glass vitrins to see than the actual castle. Shiroishi was the complete opposite.

1500th build Shiroishi castle stands on the 75 meters high hill in the small city of Shiroishi. The Castle is the common whie type, with multiple floors, but what makes this much more pleasant is that the small castle has a rule to have the guests take off their shoes and walk around on the wooden floors bare foot, there is no glass vitrins or omiyage shop at the top of the castle. You can enter freely to the highest floor's small balcony and enjoy the view without nets and other limitations. Setting sun colored the insides of the castle with warm orange while warm wind blew through the open windows. Outside the castle you can also visit a small shinto shrine that was one of the most beutiful ones I have ever seen. We spent about an hour expoloring the castle area before continuing our way towards Ooshu.

Sasuke Inari Shrine

5th day of our Kamakura trip we were exhausted about the biking trip the day before and also the good luck about the weather seemed to run out, because the weather forecast promised rain after midday. Our holiday was during the rainy season, so actually we were plenty of lucky not to have rain during any other day. But there was still one more shrine I wanted to definetly see and due the forecast, I took off early at the morning in order to see that one more shrine before down pour of the rain. (Seriously I don't understand people who can say that they were able to see everything in Kamakura in two days... those people have not seen the real Kamakura ^^)

The thing about shrines (Shinto) and temples (Buddhist) in Japan is, that what comes to the shrines, you basically never pay an entrance fee, but the shrines are also very much less adverstised than temples. Temples take entrance fees and tourists are always well-informed where the temples are (temple locations are always in the free maps, fliers and also travelling books). Coincidence? I don't think so... For example when you watch a basic free map about Kamakura, you can count around 20-30 temples marked in the map, but when it comes to shinto shrines, you can only see about 5 locations. The thing is, there is plenty of more than that five out there.

Sasuke Inari shrine is one of those shrines that are most of the times left out from the free maps and fliers. But I like to think that person who haven't seen Sasuke Inari, can't really say that they have seen the prettiest sightseeings in Kamakura. Sasuke Inari is one of the 30 000 Inari (fox/wolf god of sake and rice) shrines that are scattered around Japan. The main shrine is well known (thousands of red gates) Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto, but also other Inari shrines have the traditon about having the red torii-gate alley. So does Sasuke Inari, though it is very much smaller, about 100 meters long. Shrine it self is build within the forest (and hiking route) which gives it a quite magical atmosphere to begin with. Like the mother shrine, also Sasuke Inari has some new torii gates as well as those older ones where the red paint has already almost faded away. The shrine itself holds a great history, after all Sasuke Inari shrine was founded 1195.

Within small shrine area, every single surrounding of a small shrine statue and available rock is covered with small white fox statues, always placed in pairs. The story goes, that if you place two foxes facing each other at the shrine area and write a pray on a wooden plate, it will come true, whatever you wished for. I like to imagine how at the night time, all the foxes would wake up from the statue forms and dance around the shrine and forest, having a huge bon odori dance party all the night long, feasting the sake and rice that humans who visit the shrine are leaving behind. And then within the night one by one the foxes would carry the prays to the other world to be fulfilled. During the first rays of the morning, they would go back being statues and spend the next day listening people doing their wishes before new night.

I left the shrine just couple of minutes before the rain started, but didn't get wet becouse I decided to try out a small cafe on the same street with the shrine. And for those who pay a visit for Sasuke Inari, I really recommend eating at Lilas, a small restaurant-cafe run by a single elderly Japanese lady. Everyhting is home-made and delicious (best pasta you can have probably in whole Japan) and if you speak some Japanese, you can hear some very intresting stories about her trips to Europe and Japan decades ago.

Kamakura holiday!

Photo boom! Too much things has been going on including the end of the C-course and due to that moving forward to the first intermediate course, D-course, having great one week holiday in Kamakura, finding a job as an English and Finnish teacher and... dozens of other things. I want to write about.. everything, but I start with Kamakura, since I have way too many pretty photos to share for you!

Our trip to Kamakura started on Monday (22.6), we took Shonan-Shinjuku line from Shinjuku and headed to Kamakura around midday in order to check in to our dormitory hostel around 15pm. The first day we explored places close to the hostel, which we didn't see last time. One of those places was Amanawashimei-jinja, which we found by accident. I have always thought that the temples that are more hidden from tourist maps and crowds are the prettiest ones. And I stand behing this statement. Amanawashimei shinto shrine is cozy, very pretty small shrine, definetly worth of a visit. The main shrine is placed within the forest on the hill. At the temple we also saw a torii-gate made from stone and started to follow that to the forest. It was quite a climb and I was wearing a white dress and sandals, but as usual curisioty won over this time too. The view from the hill was pretty. After the shrine we visited the beach. If this would have been Finland I would have thought that the see was sooo warm. But I guess living in Japan for half a year changes the idea of warm and cold, so I didn't swim (coward...).

Next day we took off around 9am and headed straight to the Kamakura train station and travelled only one stop back towards Tokyo to the Kita-Kamakura station. The plan was to walk the northern hiking route, Tenen hiking trail. Before getting to the strating point we visited one of the most important zen temples around Kamakura, Engaku-ji temple. For me everything was a little bit too grand, but there was some intresting sports at the temple area, like the off-boundaries small temple where they say the Buddhas tooth is kept. The trail itself begun behind Kenchou-ji temple complex. In order to reach the beginning of the hiking trail, hiker has to climb to the highest point of the temple area, I lost the count about the stairs pretty quickly. The trail itself was so beutiful. About 4 km long walk within the bright green forest was indeed calming and relaxing experience. It was also a good exercise, but within the beuty of the forest, you barely noticed it. After approximately 2 km walk there was an outdoor cafe next to the route. Ice cream sure did good and the break was well earned. At the end of the route we very pretty exhausted and Zuisenji-temple (the ending spot of the Tenen trail) gave us a nice spot to recharge batteries a little bit before walking couple of kilometers to the closest bus stop. 

 Wednesday was supposed to be the "easy day" between the hiking and biking trip. The original plan was to take off early at the morning in order to go to the Hasedera (Ajisai/Hydrogea temple) before everyone else would go there and then head to check the Enoshima. At Hasedera, there were very much less flowers than I had expected to be, but the view over Kamakura and the sea was really pretty. But then becouse we ended up having way too much time in our hands after Hasedera, we did a little bit more climbing and finished the Gionyama hiking trail (only about 1,5 km). The Gionyama hiking course starts off behind small shinto shrine named Yakumoto which was absolutely one of the most beautiful little shrines I have ever seen. The course itself was very much different than Tenen course, staying much more at the same altitude and the forest around us was much more lighter too. Time by time we passed some building roofs, when houses were build all the way up to the hill.

 After the hike we bought the afternoon tickets to Enoshima and I have to say, due to poor shoe decision, my feet hurt already before going to the island and it only got worse. ^^ Before going to Enshima I was told two different kind of opinions about it. The other group told that it was great and pretty place. The other group kept saying it wasn't worth of the time and everything was build mainly for tourists. Well, I always want to see everything by myself, so we headed to Enoshima and the truth is that it is somewhere in between the comments. Yes, it is a place primarly for tourists and lovebirds to go. Everything was kind of a made for tourists to buy souveniers or taste all weird kind of local treats (and on top of the hill the temples are sacred for lovers). Everything costs extra on the island and at those places (for example the garden on the top of the Island and the Sea Candle tower) are pretty empty from people. I had many times a feeling about being the only person in the whole place. But still it was a pretty island to sea and expecially the coast was nice finishing point for our day (we barely had energy to walk home though ^^). 

The fourth day was the biking day. We took off before 8am in order to rent bikes as early as possible and take course towards the Jougashima (island about 30 km away from Kamakura). We had been planning the route earlier, but still the idea of biking among the cars was kind of scaring and the first tunnel really gave some chills, but we made it and after that the coast and changing scenery made the whole trip very memorable. Jogashima itself was pretty, there wasn't that many people and the amount of hawks that basically have taken the seagulls place around Kanagawa, was amazing. At the island there is two small light houses and pretty coast line. At the tip of the island there is also a park area. We spent some time collecting some seashells and eating lunch before the return trip. When we finally arrived 60 km later back to Kamakura around 18pm, the whole body was pretty tired, but the trip was definetly one of the best points of the trip. Anytime again!

Fifth day in it's own post~