In Enoshima, Kamakura, despite the big buddhist influences Shinto is very much a big part of the town’s culture and beliefs. This is a video of a matsuri that happened where it was part of pleasing the gods procession

Kamakura’s defining feature is, today as in the past, the presence of the great Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū Shinto shrine at its center. An unusual feature of the shrine is its 1.8 km sandō (参道, sandō?) (approach), which runs all the way to the the ocean in Yuigahama and doubles as Wakamiya Ōji Avenue, the city’s main street. Built by Minamoto no Yoritomo as an imitation of Kyoto’s Suzaku Ōji (朱雀大路, Suzaku Ōji?), Wakamiya Ōji used to be much wider, delimited on both sides by a 3 m deep canal and flanked by pine trees (see the Edo period print).

How to get there?
The East Japan Railway Company’s Yokosuka Line has three stations within the city. Ōfuna Station is the northernmost. Next is Kita-Kamakura Station. In the center of the city is Kamakura Station, the central railway station in the city.

Kamakura Station is the terminal for the Enoshima Electric Railway. This narrow-gauge railway runs westward to Fujisawa, and part of its route runs parallel to the seashore. After leaving Kamakura Station, trains make eight more station stops in the city. One of them is Hase Station, closest to Hase-dera and Kōtoku-in.

Kaikōzan Jishōin Hase-dera (海光山慈照院長谷寺, Kaikōzan Jishōin Hase-dera?) is one of the great Buddhist temples in the city of Kamakura in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, famous for housing a massive wooden statue of Kannon. The temple is the fourth of the 33 stations of the Bandō Sanjūsankasho pilgrimage circuit dedicated to the Goddess.

The statue is the largest wooden statue in Japan, standing at 9.18 m tall, and is made from camphor wood and gilded in gold. It has 11 heads, each of which represents a different phase in the search for enlightenment. In medieval Japanese Buddhism, a common iconography depicted Kannon with eleven hands and often with a thousand arms.

The statue is the largest wooden statue in Japan, standing at 9.18 m tall, and is made from camphor wood and gilded in gold. It has 11 heads, each of which represents a different phase in the search for enlightenment. In medieval Japanese Buddhism, a common iconography depicted Kannon with eleven hands and often with a thousand arms.

According to legend, the statue is one of two images of Kannon carved by a monk named Tokudō in 721. The camphor tree was so large, according to legend, that he decided that he could carve two statues with it. One was enshrined in the Hasedera in the city of Nara, Yamato Province, while the other was set adrift in the sea to find the place that it had a karmic connection with. It washed ashore on Nagai Beach on the Miura Peninsula near Kamakura in the year 736. The statue was immediately brought to Kamakura where a temple was built to honor it.

The temple originally belonged to the Tendai sect of Buddhism, but eventually became an independent temple of Jodo Shu sect.

The temple also commands an impressive view over Kamakura’s bay and is famous for its hydrangeas which bloom along the Hydrangea Path in June and July. The temple is built on two levels, as well as an underground cave. The cave, called benten kutsu cave, contains a long winding tunnel, with a low ceiling, and various statues and devotionals to Benzaiten, the sea goddess and the only female of the Seven Lucky Gods in Japanese mythology.

Kaikozan Hase-dera is also part of the Kamakura pilgrimage circuit, also consisting of 33 sites, and is station 4 of the 33 temples of the Kanto Pilgrimage.

To learn more about the temple visit Hasedera.jp

Man, watching this makes me want to take the next flight to Japan. I love those palm trees by the seaside. And the temple, I love how precious looking it is. Someone wanna bring me there? :D