Kamakura Trip! (Day 1 - Part 2)

Okay!  Let's finish up this trip.  On our way down from the observation tower, we found a gift shop:

For reference, here's a picture of said tower.  Not a great shot, sorry...

Our next stop was a Buddhist temple on the same island.  It's customary for such temples to have statues of 神 (かみ, kami), or gods, at the entrance.  They are typically red, have absurd muscles, and are there to scare away any evil spirits that may wish to trouble those approaching the temple.  Here are the two at the entrance to this temple:

I MUNNA EAT CHYOU!

Really absurd abs.

After visiting this temple, we went to another Shinto shrine in Enoshima.  Here are some pictures, with captions as I deem necessary. Why?  Because it's my blog.  That's why.

This is an "all-seeing" turtle; it's believed that, no matter what angle
you look at it from, it can see you - kinda like Uncle Sam
After visiting, I can attest that that's a pretty accurate description

Just a picture up someone's driveway on Enoshima...

What a great name for a Lego store!

 After leaving Enoshima, we headed for Zushi, a small town outside of Kamakura, where we would be spending the night.  On our way to the 旅館 (りょかん, ryoukan), a traditional Japanese-style inn, I saw the following sign.  I thought I should share it with you.

Clearly someone took the time to translate this - couldn't they
have found ONE English speaker to give them a hand?

Finally, before going to the 旅館, we stopped at the local beach:

We would come back here later at night, to set off 花火 (はなび, hanabi), or fireworks!  I love that in Japanese, the kanji for fireworks is literally "flower-fire".  Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures of said fireworks, for good reason.  As the only engineer on the site, I was responsible for maintaining the cinder to light the fireworks.  One of the teachers kept calling me 父さん (とうさん, tousan), which means "daddy".  XD


Finally, here's a picture of part of the supper we had that night at the 旅館.  There was also steak, and tempura, and soup, and rice, and...  Needless to say, we ate very well.

One of the other reasons I was called 父さん was because of the following story: one of the girls at the table where I was eating wasn't touching her sushi.  Curious, I asked why, and she told me that she'd had bad experience with sushi back home.  So, I tried to convince her for the next thirty minutes that she should try sushi.  I coaxed her with the tuna sushi, then convinced her to try the eel sushi.  I cannot remember what kind the third piece was, but the teacher at our table was laughing so hard at my encouragement and decided I was 父さん.

素晴らしい話兄貴。