Waves caught by surfers catch you as you boardwalk this town that feels like the border that frames all your favourite Japanese art prints and pins. The wind in Kamakura was so bad the weekend I went I was getting hit by waves from the sea and I wasn't even walking on the beach. It felt I was getting slapped in the face by Hokusai. But what a way to wake up. Most mornings on this salary side of Japan you expect to be surrounded by suits walking round the temples and traditional terrace houses, not Speedos. But this is Kamakura, where the hair is slicked back with salt water not gel. The beach and the walk with the tide licking your feet is beyond beautiful. But if your surf is all the way up to the shore, by nightfall you can see an iconic look of Mount Fuji. A vivid view that takes your breath away as much as hiking up there. Just a stones throw away from Tokyo and a skim of just under a half hour away on the train from Yokohama, this is the perfect getaway for both if you're visiting Japan, or if you live there between the rat race hustle and bustle of neon and all that's lost in translation...trust me.
Medieval Japan's political center there are still traditions to the past in temple to this land of the rising suns legendary legacy just like there is between all the convenience stores and bright advertising lights through this nuanced, neon nation. But the biggest draw is the biggest Buddah you've seen this side of Hong Kong. Millions upon millions make the pilgrimage to see and praise it everyday, bowing and giving thanks. And with more Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines than you can see a day then why don't you stay? The Kōtoku-in feels like a local finalist for a world wonder if you really want to have your breath taken away between all the sea air and cherry blossom petals that will Sakura soon fall between it, for what will make the perfect Instagram picture, but what's more, life experience. Daibutsu IS Japan. A 15th century tsunami destroyed a temple that surrounded the Buddah completely, but with his home destroyed the Buddah still stood, survived and stands to this day, hundreds upon hundreds of years later. Is there anything more that subtly and symbolically speaks to the resiliency of this reserved but revelatory nation under the rising sun?
Gozan. Kamakura is also home to the Five Great Zen Temples and we all know how significant that number is to the beauty of Buddhism. Their proposal for having some of their landmark locations added to the atlas of World Heritage Sights needs to be made matrimony without even having to get down on one knee. And how about it? With itinerary highlights like the Tsurugaoka Hachimangū and how from your walking entrance it almost looks like two temples stacked on top of each other. Or the Kyoto circular world's view of the gardens of the Megetsuin Temple. And if you want to talk about this lands most traditional town than how about the Hokokuji Temple and its epic entrance of beautiful bamboo? The Great Kantō earthquake in 1923 almost levelled this city, but brick by brick, pillar by pillar, strength to strength what did we tell you about this nation that rebuilds more than the New York Knicks? This shogunate, former defacto capital of Japan with Nice and Nashville as it's French and USA sister cities, from its green traditional trains like a San Francisco tram, to the Californian like hills that lead to gold like the end of a rainbow is this nations treasure like the page of a Murakami book, or the brush of a waves stroke. If Tokyo is the pulse and Kyoto the heart, then Kamakura is the soul. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
