Today Shige and I took a day trip to Kamakura, a quiet town about an hour outside of Tokyo that is home to many temples and shrines, including the famous Daibatsu statue (13.5 meter tall bronze buddha). I woke up early and met Shige at a train station and we rode out to Kita-Kamakura to start walking south through town, visiting a bunch of temples along the way.

It was fantastic to have Shige as a guide - he pointed out a lot of things I would never have noticed and explained a bit about buddhist and shinto practices. Inbetween temple visiting we stopped for lunch (kaiten-zushi-ya!) and looked at souveneir shops. It was a really nice day.

Afterwards we went out in Shinjuku with some of Shige’s friends (Keiko, Nozomi and Sean) to an Irish pub. It was nice to be out with a group of people who can speak English!