This was our day to go to Kamakura. I didn't really want to go. I heard that it was all about the temples and I thought that the temples in Kyoto were mainly a bust. Mrguy really wanted to go, so we went.
It was lovely. The train dumped us out in the middle of nothing much, and we entered a complex of temples. I could not stop taking pictures.
the buildings were pretty and the plantings were pretty. We followed people who were standing in line to go into a building and took off our shoes with them as we had at Ryoanji. A monk kindly addressed us and helped us understand that this was Zen instruction, not a visitor site ;)
There was groovy stuff to see everywhere:
The setting below reminds me of a landscape from a Miyazaki film.
After leaving the temple we went to the next train stop in order to find some lunch. It was another one of those situations in which I was too hungry to decide what to do. Central Kamakura was as crowded as the temple had not been.
We wandered around the windy side streets of Kamakura and I saw a sign for pizza outside of a teensy storefront. We went in.
THIS was the best thing in town. The place was no wider than a railroad car, and definitely not as long. On one side of the room was a shallow bar with a few built-in stools. On the other side were a few booths. A woman in her early sixties greeted us. This was her place.
The other customer was an older gentleman at the bar who passed the time with her as he faced the door with his side to her. He reminded me a lot of Don Ho and other gentlemen from years past with leisure suits and matching shoes, slicked-back hair and a few gold-edged teeth. Clearly he put a lot into his grooming and seemed like a bit of a swinger. The place was too intimate for photo taking, so a few closeups is all that I got.
The pizza was just what it looked like. Pepperidge Farm puff pastry dough with a few spoonfuls of sauce, a sprinkling of cheese and a couple of olives or mushrooms. She made it in the toaster oven behind the bar and it took forever. Who cares? It was an amazing experience.
I don't think the decor had changed for thirty years, and she was playing CSNY and other American rock music from the 1970s. The only soft drinks they had were tonic and something else. I had a tonic. Can you see the bottle? It looks like new old stock. I felt like I'd fallen into one of my vintage Hawaii Five-0 episodes. I wanted to buy her business right then and there and retire to Kamakura with my honey.
What an adventure. Afterward we found local beers to bring back home to Tokyo and hot off the griddle sembei for me to eat. I really liked Kamakura.
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