sakura in kamakura

(Keeroo, this post is purely for you!)

the sakura are almost gone in most of kansai, and once again i’ve failed to take any pictures of those that grow on the grounds of my apartment complex. i can never bother doing so, cos taking pictures of them means that i’ll either have to make a special trip downstairs to take photos, or that i’ll have to stop while i’m cycling out. either way, i think the sakura where i live are best appreciated cycling fast out of the side gates, perhaps only slowing down when the petals are falling in the wind.

anyhow, i was in kamakura before school started, and the sakura there were actually more in bloom than those in osaka, even though it’s warmer here.

the first real glimpse of sakura was when we reached Kuzuharagaoka Shrine while on the way to the big buddha at Kotokuin:

 

by the way, i know my photos arent too impressive, but that’s because i know that capturing the beauty of sakura as you see it is an exercise in futility, so i dont even bother to try.

continuing on, this is what people in japan do when they’re out at hanami, or cherry blossom viewing:

i was about to type “japanese people” up there, when i remembered that us Osaka City JETs probably had the greatest tarp to human ratio when we were hanami-ing at osaka castle park last weekend. here’s two of our party having a DSLR vs old video recorder standoff:

note also the dirty socks – and this was only about an hour into the hanami for most of us. by the end of the day – i was there for about 7 hours – our socks were completely wrecked, mainly because people were playing beer pong or got progressively more inebriated through other methods and spilled liquid all over the tarp. it was really gross.

but i digress. here’s a close-up of some blossoms that have seen better days:

and yes, this is the length to which some people would go to for the perfect picture:

having been here for a while, however, i have to say that his lens isn’t that impressive.

some nicer sakura in the nearby park:

Zeniarai Benten, which i just blogged about in the previous post, has some pretty, multi-layered sakura. just dont wash your money there!

just a bit further down from the Daibutsu, towards Hase station on the Enoshima line is Hase-dera. It’s a very beautiful temple which a nice view, a fair bit to see and pretty flowers. It’s most famous for the 12-faced, 9m high Kannon, but i think the grotto with the Benzaiten statues was the coolest bit.

we even saw some pilgrims walk right before us

there was this gorgeous sakura tree that everyone was taking pictures of:

 

it was also interesting in that flowers grew in clusters on some parts of its bark:

isnt this cute?

i think, however, the best place for sakura viewing in kamakura was Kenchoji. it was surprisingly empty, but is ranked first among the 5 great Zen temples in Kamakura, and is one of the best sights in Kamakura. lots of the halls were transferred to its current location from its original location elsewhere in japan (like kyoto). Lonely Planet highlighted “the painstakingly landscaped Zen garden, shaped like the kanji for ‘mind’”, although i can assure you that the pond in the garden looked nothing like 心。

isnt this pretty?

and this concludes my 桜だより。until i next see sakura, さよなら、and お気おつけて。