Kamakura to Karaoke

May 31, 2014

Another full day here in Japan! I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but this was one of my favorite days and the best parts are at the end…

We left Tokyo early this morning for Kamakura. Kamakura is definitely urban, like Tokyo, but feels much older and more antique. 

The first thing we did was go see the Kamakura Shinto shrine. I’ve decided that I really like Shinto shrines over Buddhist temples. Since Shinto started as nature worship, the shrines tend to feature gardens or forested areas. 

The visitor enters through a gate and then ventures through a long, narrow path in the middle of the street, like a beautiful, walkable median. Then the path opens up to the actual shrine. There is a bridge, a beautiful mini-shrine, and a stone staircase leading to a much larger shrine on the side of a mountain. The pictures I got are of the mini-shrine at the foot of the mountain. The larger shrine was too tremendous to capture in a photo! 

But the best part about Kamakura, in my opinion, is the landscape. Kamakura is surrounded by mountains on three sides and an ocean on the fourth. Looking up at the mountains from the city, it feels like you’re in a glorious fish bowl. 

We left the shrine and were given free time to find something to eat. 

I went to a restaurant with some friends to enjoy the air conditioning and cold water, and I ordered a tiny bite, but I had my heart set on the beef bun shop I’d seen on the street!
I’d heard that beef buns were delicious, and I’d seen them all over Japan, but this was my first opportunity to actually get one!

It didn’t disappoint. 

The outside is a sweet, slightly sticky, soft bread and at the core is perfectly moist shredded beef. (And they’re pretty!) Yum!

The next stop for the day was the Kamakura Big Buddha statue.

This is a massive statue of Buddha, one of the oldest and the second largest in Japan.

It was really neat to hear about all of the symbolism, history, and detail in the one statue. 

I’ve also found it really interesting, throughout the whole trip, to learn about Japanese religion. There’s sort of a joke here that Japanese people are born Shintoists, married Christians, and die Buddhists. It seems that, in general, people are not so much “religious” as they are “spiritual.” There’s a great deal of blending going on between religions, and it comes out in a lot of the art, temples, and shrines I’ve seen. 

Next up was a spectacular Buddhist temple!
I know I said earlier that I prefer Shinto shrines to Buddhist temples because I so enjoy all of the natural elements at the shrines, but this Buddhist temple is an exception. It was more like a nature reserve than a temple! The actual indoor temple part was tiny in comparison to the lavish gardens, coy ponds, and even caves that we explored.  There was also a great view of the ocean from the temple! 

Okay so this is where the day gets crazy.

I casually told Dr. Baba that I hadn’t gotten ramen yet in Japan, and he organized a whole group event around the comment!
He took us to the ramen museum… one of the weirdest places I’ve ever seen.

I walked in, headed down a narrow stairway, and popped out in this very strange, underground pseudo-town. 

It’s been designed to look like an old Japanese town, with vintage movie posters, fake laundry hung to pretend-dry outside of uninhabited apartments… even a painted sky! All around this strange museum-town are a number of ramen shops. Each one has it’s own signature recipe; my friends and I stopped into a miso ramen shop. 

It was incredible! Very very rich and thick. Not anything like the ramen my college friends and I have gotten used to! 

Once I’d licked the bowl clean, my friends and I headed back to the “town square” just in time to see the weirdest magic show ever. The “magician” spoke in Japanese, and performed what was more like a strange one-man talent show than magic. First there was juggling, then speed stacking (Remember speed stacking? Like with the cups?), as well as a sort of funky dance routine. It was pretty weird, but definitely entertaining! And he loved me and my friends! There was a good crowd, but he talked and performed to us the whole time. He even posed for my picture! In the middle of his show!  

But the crazy night doesn’t end there!
Once we’d returned to Tokyo, we all took a few minutes to rest our tired feet, but then dragged ourselves out of bed to hit up the Japanese karaoke scene. 

Viet, Kirby, and I had agreed on Day 1 that we needed to go do karaoke while in Tokyo. It’s such a uniquely asian experience, very different from karaoke in the states! It took more convincing to get some of our other friends on board, but eventually we were able to get a group of seven folks to go!
It was probably the most fun thing I’ve done since getting here.

Unlike karaoke back home where you perform in a bar for strangers, asian karaoke places provide you and your friends a private room where you can hang out and only sing for one another. 

It’s hilariously popular! Walking down the street on any given night in Tokyo, I’d see crowds filling up the karaoke places, and there are dozens and dozens of these places! Some people even will get private rooms just to sleep for the night if they miss the last train home. I’d even see packs of business men in suits going in together! Can you imagine a bunch of lawyers or bankers gathering together after work for a little karaoke? That’s exactly what was happening!
Despite the fact that several members of our party insisted they would go but not sing, everyone ended up on their feet, singing their hearts out, after a few minutes.

One Direction really speaks to me

Don't ask my why there was a light show featuring ancient Greece...

(Note: Several of the beverages in these pics are nonalcoholic. It looks like we partied way harder than we did… I had chocolate milk.) 

We were pleased to find they had many hits we knew like… Royals, Twenty-Two, Love Story, That’s What Makes You Beautiful, Gold-Digger, Lady Marmalade, Zippadeedooda, a Backstreet Boys medley, and (of course) Let It Go. 

We only had the room for an hour, but we all agreed we could’ve stayed much longer!  

When it was finally time to leave (and I should note that the two people who were most apprehensive about going were the two we had to drag out of the room when our hour was up!), we all agreed that it was a thoroughly worthwhile experience, and ended the night hanging out in our hotel, having bonded over the majesty of Disney and 90’s jams.