Hunting for Dragons on Enoshima Island

Rumor has it that there once was a 5 Headed Dragon that terrorized a part of Japan just to the south of us.  This fierce dragon lived on a small island, now called Enoshima.  Benton, a popular goddess of good fortune, wealth, music and knowledge, subdued the dragon and saved the area.  Of course there are still stories of dragons loose on the island...so naturally Brockzilla had to go check it out!

We spent Saturday exploring Enoshima Island, a little island attached by a 1/2 mile long bridge.  We drove out there, which was an adventure in itself (thank you Google maps on the iPhone!).  The island is known for its shrines, observation tower and caves down by the sea.  The view of Mount Fuji is supposedly excellent on clear day.  Unfortunately it was a little too hazy.  No worries, we'll definitely be going back!      

The island itself is not that large.  Like many areas of Japan it is quite hilly! You can buy an 'EnoPass' to get into the caves, the observation tower and multiple gardens, and it also allows you to ride a number of escalators to the top.  Very helpful with Lila!  The down side is that these escalators don't exist on the backside of the island down to the caves.  So at the end of the day we had to climb back up! I had Lila on my back...workout complete!

This is a shot back towards the bridge...only slightly up the hill.  The street is full of shops.  Evidently squid pressed bread is a real treat?!  Towards the top of the street is where the Benton shrines are located.

We were looking for dragons.  Found this one, but supposedly the dragon we were looking for lived in the caves (where else would a dragon live?).  Of course, before we explored the caves we took a look around the garden, had French Toast for lunch, a big hit, and checked out the observation tower.

Even in February the flowers are starting to look great.  After lunch we climbed down to the waterline, where the caves were located.  Inside the caves we looked around by candle light.  What better way for a tall American to make his way through a dark, low ceiling cave!  Brilliant.

This shot is one of the high ceiling points.  Even Liam had to duck a number of times to get here, but it was worth it.

We finally did find the dragon.  He is supposedly sleeping, but if you clap really loudly you can wake him up.

Back outside the caves, after a head count, we checked out the flat rocks leading to the water.  The tide was coming in but nothing threatening, we just had to avoid a few puddles.  Ironically, with all the people around on the rocks, the local park attendant felt it necessary to come out and warn us of the tide and suggest we not go too far out.  I think she was afraid of the bad press that would be generated by the big, dumb Americans getting pulled out to sea!  I can understand her concern.  She was very nice and took our picture.

So what do you do after climbing over 200 steps back to the top of the island?  You dare your kids to eat SQUID on a stick!

Ethan did get in on the act.  Of course, he was skeptical at first, he didn't trust us that it tasted good.

It was an awesome day!

Buddha's House

We kind of got out of sync with the blog events and posting, so this one will try to catch up!

Couple of weeks ago we took the kids to see the great Buddha.  The Great Buddha of Kamakura is a huge bronze statue of Amitabha Buddha in the Kotoku-in Temple.  This guy is massive!  He is about 45 feet tall and weighs about 110 tons...and he's hollow.   You can actually pay an extra 20 Yen...that's about 16 cents (thank god for COLA!) and go inside.  So naturally we had to go into the belly of the great beast!  It was really cool.  Of course, Lila wasn't really impressed.  Now if there was an ice cream place inside, she'd be all over it.

Anyways, the Buddha's been around a long time, since about 1252.  He used to be covered in a huge wooden temple, but that temple was WASHED AWAY by a massive tidal wave in 1498!!!  Then in 1925 a massive earthquake struck but only damaged the base, so they re-enforce the neck and made it possible for the Buddha to move freely on a new base to avoid the shocks of another earthquake, kind of like a surf board!

At the end of the day, it is still a shrine and temple where many people come to worship, pray and meditate.  So each of the kids gave some yen and then 'made a wish'.  Liam went the extra distance getting his Zen on.