I took today’s photo in Kamakura because of the cool-looking, old-style, Japanese building. This kind of architecture isn’t as common as it once was, but you can still find it, even in big cities.

Based on the sign in the lower left corner of the picture, you can buy specialty (microbrewery) beer here. Kamakura Beer (鎌倉ビール) appears to offer a variety of beers. I never saw Kamakura Beer, or other microbrews, for sale at most locations in Japan. Usually, stores offered a wide variety of beer that tasted pretty much the same (boring lagers). If this liquor store is closed when you visit Kamakura, you can buy from the vending machine out front (lower right part of pic). Now that is something you won’t find in most other parts of the world.

Posted on November 17th, 2011 under Japan. Tags: beer, buildings, jidohanbaiki, kamakura, signs. Comments Off on Japanese Liquor Store – Kamakura, Japan

Scene out the train window on the Enoshima Electric Railway Line

Between Kamakura and Enoshima you can ride an old school train with views overlooking the ocean. Today’s photo is of the other view, out the back of the train.

Posted on November 10th, 2011 under Japan. Tags: enoshima, kamakura, trains. Comments Off on Enoden (江ノ島電鉄) View

Kamakura's famous Hasedera front gate with pine tree

Posted on October 9th, 2011 under Japan. Tags: buddhist, hasedera, kamakura, lanterns, pine, temples. Comments Off on Hasedera

I know. It’s the wrong season for a picture like this, but my random desktop generator came up with this today, and you can’t argue with it. This is a scene from Kencho-Ji in Kamakura in late November.

In 1498 a giant tsunami washed away much of Kamakura, including the building that housed the giant Buddha. Since then the Daibutsu has remained in the open.

Having never visited Natori, or the other cities and towns completely wiped out by the recent tsunami, I imagined Kamakura, where I have been several times, when I saw the photos from the results of the Sendai quake and tsunami. The thought of a place like Kamakura getting hit by a tsunami large enough to reach the Daibutsu is chilling to my core.

Posted on March 23rd, 2011 under Japan. Tags: buddhist, japanese maple, kamakura, kenchoji, temples, 紅葉. Comments: 1

Time to turn off CNN or whatever news show you’ve been watching for the past five or six days. Time to realize that the news is performed by actors looking for ratings, not reporters looking to give you a true picture of reality. Sure there was a massive quake and tsunami. There is lots of damage, death, and destruction along the coast near Sendai and in Fukushima. Japan will recover, rebuild, and be better than before.

The news media are not presenting things accurately. I cringe at nearly everything they say. The western news media in particular seem to be totally clueless. They sometimes don’t know where they are (naming places that certainly aren’t currently located at as their current location), can’t even pronounce Tokyo (it isn’t To-ki-o), and sensationalize the facts. It’s almost as if they want things to be worse. I watched one news guy call the area hit by the tsunami a “retirement community” since there are so many old people. Rural Japan is loaded with old people. That’s Japan! Elderly people didn’t move there in retirement (which is what an American might think).

We have friends and family who have been watching the news calling and emailing us saying how fortunate we are to be back in the USA and not in Tokyo where we wouldn’t be able to find food to eat, water to drink, and where we’d be dying of exposure to radiation. Ha! I’d take the food selection in Tokyo, post-earthquake, any day.

Here are a couple more links to show how things really are in Tokyo:
Food crisis in Tokyo!!! (not)
Post Earthquake Tokyo

BTW, today’s photo is from Tokeiji in Kamakura. It represents a call for more calmness and less panic-spreading nonsense from CNN and the other news outlets.

Posted on March 16th, 2011 under Japan. Tags: kamakura, tokeiji, Tokyo. Comments: 6