Kamakura is my favourite day trip from Tokyo. When we first got to Japan we stayed with a friend down that way for a month (thanks Tanya!), and every time I go down there, I get all those lung-tightening, exciting feelings i had when we first moved here. If we were going to be long term residents in Japan, I think it is the only place I could live. It’s close to the water, has lots of beautiful temples, and plenty of trees. It is just much more relaxed than Tokyo, and only an hour away.

Last weekend we visited Kenchoji , an old and beautiful Zen temple, with lovely buildings and spare, peaceful gardens. And a nice temple cat.

Walking further up the back of the temple, we climbed up about seven million stairs to a smaller temple, which was cute, and had spectacular views over Kamakura city to the sea. It also had this great Tengu guy, and his eagle nosed minion. (I don’t actually know who the eagle guy is, but I am assuming stature is measured in nose length).

If you keep walking up past the temple, you get to a higher viewing platform, where we got a great view of Fuji-san that, like the view of the town and ocean, didn’t photograph very well.

It was at this point i realised, just before we were about to set off for a two hour bush walk, that I had forgotten to buy another bottle of water. The track was pretty and easy going, though it would be very muddy after the rain. No more amazing views, but plenty of little caves and mini shrines to keep our interest. The signs were all in Japanese, and I guess the sign that I took to mean hiking trail is down here, in fact meant hiking trail is not down here. The wrong path led us straight down a hill to a lacklustre temple, that didn’t have a drink vending machine, where we had lunch. And then walked back up the stupid hill to rejoin the actual hiking trail.

As we were walking through the bush, a half eaten orange came thumping down on the ground, inches from me. I immediately assumed it was an angry mother monkey, who was about to descend on me with fangs bared. Monkeys have fangs, right? My heart was thumping and the wind ominously chose to gush through the trees shaking all the leaves. As i searched the trees for my would-be attacker, I let out a gasp and scared the polyprop pants off Jess. Squirrels! Lots and lots of lovely fluffy little squirrels. So speedy! So agile! So cute! The speedy agility made them difficult to photograph, but here is Jess’ best attempt.

I realise this is not so exciting for my two North American readers. I hear you folk are swimming in squirrels up there. But in New Zealand, fauna are thin on the ground in the bush. Except for dastardly possums, which we shoot on sight.

Getting thirstier by the minute, I was just thinking I might have to suck on a button, when we came upon this. In the middle of a bush walk.

Thank you Japan.

It was getting quite late due to the detour and squirrel watching, so we picked up the pace, as I was really excited to get to the next temple, Zuisenji, which apparently has an all-rock Zen garden, designed by a famous garden guy . What we found was this.

Happily, we consoled ourselves with this