Japanese Gold Rush

I think Japan can tell that our time is coming to end shortly.  It's been pulling out all of the stops, it terms of weather.  Yesterday was in the low-70s and it's supposed to continue to get better!  Well, even though Tim was working, I couldn't just sit at home and not enjoy that!  So I hopped on the bus/train(s) and made my way to  Kamakura. You might be thinking, "she's been there, like, 4 times...why does she keep going back?!"  Because there is so much to see!

Unfortunately, this is what the train looked like when I got on at our home stop:

Why is this bad?  Because this is what Kamakura looked like when I got off:

Here's a comparison shot from our last trip, taken at the same temple:

The pictures don't do it justice.  It was the worst crowd situation I have been in this whole trip, with the exception of Tokyo Rush Hour train.  Why was it so crowded?  It's Golden Week!  A whole week of national holidays in Japan.  People come out by the droves!  

After getting stuck in this crowd, I veered off to a side street and ran into this:

After having a bit of a laugh over that, I kept elbowing my way through the crowd to find another empty road.  I managed to find a sign pointing me towards the Jufukuji Temple and I set off.  Thankfully this road was much, much less crowded and took me through a part of Kamakura I had yet to see.  One of the interesting things about Japan are the number of railroad crossings.  I ended up having to wait for one of the JR trains to pass...

I'm glad that I tried to find this temple, it was gorgeous! 

It is the oldest zen temple and the third highest ranking out of the five principle zen temples in Kamakura.  At the entrance I read a sign that said that in the hillside behind the temple are some "Yagura" or medieval tunnel graves.  They shelter five tiered pagodas, said to be the final resting place of a former Shogun and his mother.  There are also some other famous Japanese people buried here. 

I decided to wander back to the main shopping street, but the crowds were overwhelming, so I got some blueberry fro-yo and headed towards the train station.  Even the train platform was crowded!

Fortunately, almost 90% of these people were headed in the Tokyo direction and by the time my train came, the crowds had thinned out considerably.