The day started off with us again walking to the eki. On the way, we finally got a decent picture of a Japanese karasu. The karasu look about halfway between the crows we have back home and the ravens I remember from Anchorage. They are very interesting and beautiful birds... but hard to catch on camera. Every time I'd bring my camera out and open the lens, they'd fly away. We saw several "beware of the crows" signs. Apparently, the karasu are known for attacking people who have food.

The Japanese karasu really were cool. Around the time of the aquarium, we had seen a sign that had said; 'Beware of crow attacks.' The karasu on the sign was dressed up like a Yakuza. (Japanese gangster type figure.)

From Asagaya, we took the Chuou line densha (train) to Tokyo. At Tokyo, we transferred to the Toukaido line, which took us into Kamakura.

Our destination was a place called Rai-Tei. Rai-Tei is a restaurant that serves handmade soba (buckwheat noodles) and other traditional foods. The food was extremely expensive, starting at about 2,500 yen ($25) a plate. We were living on a gyudon and McDonalds budget, so we both freaked when we saw the menu... but my friend kept saying, "daijoubu, daijoubu" (it's ok, it's ok), so we accepted it and ordered. It was delicious! I ate a soba soup accompanied by tempura, fruit (including a fruit we determined was called ginko in English), fish, etc. All of it was artfully displayed, everything in its own dish.

I... didn't want to eat it. I'd never had a meal that had cost more than $10. This was a new and weird experience. In the end I ended up eating it anyway because of fear that they were being offended by my lack of eating.  

The atmosphere also was amazing! Rai-Tei sat surrounded by acres of gardens, filled with old buildings and status collected from around the area. It was originally part of a subdivision for vacation homes back at the beginning of the Showa period (1926 - 1989).

Rai-Tei definitely had a 'Japan' kind of feel. The kind of place you'd find pictures of on a novel cover. Very old-fashioned.

Even though it is near the city, and close to the sea, it has the feel of being up in the mountains... very peaceful. We spent a good couple of hours or so wandering through the gardens and bamboo forest.

Pan-Tan loved the Bamboo Forest. I had to pull him away from some stalks that looked especially juicy.

I suppose Mormon is well known even in Japan... 

We looked at the menu. I did my usual "kore wa nan desu ka?" (What's this?) to learn what everything was. We found several items that didn't contain tea, and ordered. I had a dessert that had little mochi balls in an azuki (sweet red bean) sauce. I really liked it! Eleanor ordered what turned out to be clear noodles in a syrup. She wasn't too sure about it, so I tasted it for her. The syrup was definitely brown sugar. Delicious! However, she couldn't get past the texture of the clear noodles...

The noodles were weird. The syrup stuff was too sweet,and it felt like chewing on a baby chew toy. Bleh. I'll stick with Men's Pocky.

There were a few other desserts they ordered that we all shared, but I think Eleanor pretty much decided that Pocky was about as "traditional Japanese" as she was going to get when it came to snacks.

Damn straight.

I'd heard of the '100 Gods' thing before. One of the stories on my manga is based on this kind of thing.

We also passed this statue at left. He's a character from Japanese legend, but in the picture it looks like he's asking Eleanor for directions. ^-^

I think his name was Kintarou. I don't remember the legend, but I know he's in an Anime called Haunted Junction.

We went on further and came to a small shrine. I had thought that it looked alot like a Kitsune Shrine. (Mystic Fox) 

One of our friends pointed to where a couple  small statues at the entrance of the small shrine would be, and said that it was a 'Mamori-gami' (Protective Spirit) shrine. One of the small statues was there, but one of them was missing. 

I still think it looked alot like a Kitsune Shrine. 

It was the middle of Winter, but there was still plenty of greenery... and a few very confused peach trees that must have thought it was Spring already because they were blooming, nearly two months early.

There were stones with poetry all over the place. All of them very old. Even the natives could only pick out little bits of them.

Overhead were groups of Japanese eagles circling around in search of prey. They were quite pretty, but too far away to get a good picture. I did try though.

Finally, we'd come full circle and were ready to head back into town. Eleanor still hadn't bought enough manga (does she ever?), so our first stop was a bookstore. While she was in there, my friend and I walked across the street and bought some more film at a grocery store.

Next we drove down to the Shonan Beach area. Shonan is often called "the Miami Beach of Japan". It is a favorite destination for surfers and other water sport enthusiasts, some of which were actually crazy enough to be out surfing and sail boarding this day in the nearly freezing temperatures!

We stopped at a coffee shop there, where we met another of their friends who was there. We got sodas from the drink bar, then sat and talked a bit. Eleanor ordered a fruit and crème dessert that was quite good. Even she liked it. ^-^

It tasted pretty similar to the parfaits at McDonalds. 

My friends' friend told us a bit about the history of Kamakura. He said that the place was very old and it was not unusual for developers to accidentally dig up old graves while excavating to build new houses.

Then we took off and went into the tourist areas of town. We saw the Dai Butsu (Big Buddha)  that everyone associated with Kamakura. We stopped at a hand washing station then went in. It was pretty cool... definitely big! 

Daibutsu was boring. Putting that aside...

After that we went on a walking road that went down the middle of the main street. In past times, only the nobles were allowed to use the road. Everyone else had to walk on either side of it. The road was elevated and was wider at one end than the other, causing forced perspective... and making the nobles appear as if they had walked farther. 

Bleh. A road just to make the nobles feel more important than everyone else? What a load of crap! 

Though the reason for the road is ridiculous, the road itself was quite pretty. I heard from one of our friends that all the trees along the road were sakura's. And that when the sakura's were in full bloom, parties are held all along that road.

The road led us to some old government buildings and a temple that was pretty interesting. 

The buildings were very gaudy. With red and gold everywhere they could get away with putting them. It got boring pretty quickly. We saw a Miko (Shrine Maiden) but she looked too busy to get her picture taken.  

After we'd had enough of tourist stuff, we walked over to another manga shop. Eleanor got more manga. Then we walked around a bit more until too soon it was time to go. We said our good-byes then headed back to the Tokyo area.

I found one of my favorite books stores ever! Book Off!
Book Off is the equivalent of a book-only dollar store. 
Manga for only one dollar!? I've died and gone to heaven!!

When we got to the Tokyo area, out of curiosity, before transferring to the Chuou line, we decided to go for a walk outside the eki at Tokyo. We found mostly office buildings and expensive stores (most were closed by that hour)... interesting area, I suppose, if you like that kind of thing. What impressed us most was the eki itself. It was built during the Meiji era and had that definite 19th century western influence look that was popular at the time. It was actually quite pretty. We took a couple pictures of it, then went back "home" to Asagaya.
peace