The train the train track ran parallel to the road in several places.
At one stop, these people hopped on.
This guy gets on with a camera crew.
Kai! We need you to translate! What's going on.
One cameraman was next to me.
We didn't know what to make of this.
So taking pictures of them filming us seemed like a good idea.
Kai was able to determine that the guy was a Japanese comedian and he, his mom (?why? Did he get this ideas from when David Letterman had his mom cover the Winter Olympics?), and the camera crew were filming a travel show.
We chatted. Kai translated. I asked if he'd hear of Jerry Seinfeld. I was hoping to ask about Super Terrific Happy Hour. But he only knew Charlie Chaplin, Jack Benny, and Mr. Bean. The comedian guy loved doing Chaplin and Mr. Bean imitations.
They filmed the whole thing. Sheila was between the comedian and his mom, so she had continuous camera. I was glad I didn't.
It was also funny that more people got in the train and it got quite crowded, but the crew didn't move.
The producer had the comedian describe his mom. Apparently it was so embarrassing for Kai that he couldn't even translate. Did I tell you Kai is almost 16 and the comedian was allegedly describing his mom's private body parts?
Then the mom started talking about how he needed a girlfriend. Sheila offered Bryn. Bryn was a safe distance away cut off by the camera crew. We called repeatedly to Bryn, and she squirted three the crowd and onto the film of the five cameras.
The guy asked if Bryn would be his girlfriend. Bryn said, "No, I'm married...to him!" And she pointed to Keagan, sitting next to me.
(Keagan and Bryn were married in an elaborate backyard wedding in 2009, where they deflowered my favorite flowers in my garden, my peonies. As a result, the wedding was memorable for the fit I pitched when I discovered my beautiful flowers reduced to a path of petals with four beaming children thrilled at their cleverness.)
The comedian told Bryn he didn't believe her. I told Kai to find out how old the guy was. He said 37, so I pointed at Bryn and said "17" shook my head and gestured no.
As we disembarked the train, the producer, using Kai to translate, asked o
Olaf, the only adult male, if it was ok for us to be on tv.
So, if you're ever watching a Japanese travel show with a comedian going to see the Great Buddha, look for us!
Being a seaside town...
Warnings abound
Hey visitors! Welcome to the death trap!
Kamikura is famous for having something like 17 shrines including the Giant Buddha.
Here's some info:
It's really amazing that this thing was cast so long ago and has lasted even when tsunamis and earthquakes have destroyed everything.
As an aside, it appears that every city in Japan has been destroyed and rebuilt several times. It it wasn't warring shoguns, tsunamis, and earthquakes, it was the Allied forces decimating many other places prior to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
So, here's a picture of Buddha.
Amy and Sheila were taking pictures. You can't tell, but it's about eleventy billion degrees in the shade, and the sun was so bright tears ran out of my eyes when I took off my sunglasses.
Then we climbed into Buddha. Here's the view from the back. Remember this thing was cast in 1252!
Sidebar: We Americans tend to think that the colonial times were so long ago. Everything in Japan seems to have been created long before Columbus, the Maya, or much of anything in the Americas.
Nice shoulder blades!
We climbed in.
This picture is taken with flash from inside Buddha's intestines looking up through his brain.
The metal walls were sooo hot to touch, and getting back out into the sun seemed like a relief. Ok, it was half a degree cooler.
Then we did the tourist thing, got lunch, and went to the beach.
Japan is really good to tourists. Except at this beach which charged $15 for adults and $8 for kids for the privilege of using the bathroom and showers. And not even a lifeguard. And clearly very high standards for decorum.
There was no outdoor faucet of any kind. They had a squatty which had no toilet paper (don't ask), the beach was strewn with trash, and it's only redeeming quality was dead jellyfish.
Non-sequitur: It's a Buddhist monk! On a bicycle!
We left and went to a second beach three train stops away. This was much more reasonable. $1 for a dirty squatty with toilet paper, and $3 for a room to change in and shower.
But it closed at 4:30 and we arrived at 4:15. But the kids and Olaf were game. Us grown women, having years of experience with sandy bodies with no ability to rinse anything and having a 1.5 hour train ride to return reluctantly declined participation.
This beach was also dirty. But the waves were enough to make the kids happy.
It had some cool shells interspersed with the trash.
If you're going to the beach in Japan, go to Odawara. Don't go in or near Kamikura unless you plan to empty your child's 529.
Seriously, I'm going on Trip Advisor and writing a scathing review.
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