Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, Kamakura

Have you ever heard of "Tsurugaoka hachimangu" in Kamakura?
It's a big and beautiful japanese shrine which has a lot of visitors everyday.
Especially when there's a shrine ritual or festival it's crowded with people.
There was a Festival of the Weaver on July 7th. I missed it.


A big tree beside of the stone steps to the main shrine.

As most of Japanese shrines are situated in the woods, Tsurugaoka shrine is surrounded by big trees. And there are 2 large ponds in the shrine grounds, which are covered with lotus flowers in July. You can take a good walk in the woods and enjoy lotus flowers at the ponds.
Of course don't forget to visit the beautiful vermilion-lacquered main shrine,
an important cultural assets at first.
If you have lucky, you maybe see Japanese wedding.


Cute! She's 5 year-old and came to pray for her future.

Komachi street or Wakamiya street from Kamakura station lead to Tsurugaoka shrine.
I prefer take Komachi street first, and then take Wakamiya street on the way back.
Because you can taste a lot of delicious sweets in this street. Some purple icecream made of sweet poteto, some honey icecream, a fresh-backed rice cracker, or some sweet rice dumplings, for example. Mmm, yammy!


Komachi street and Wakamiya street meet at this point.

There's a festival of paper lantern in Tsurugaoka shrine for 3 days from August 6th.
Around 400 paper lanterns are lighted in the evening, they are really fantastic and beautiful.
It's something to see!

Here's Turugaoka shrine's website, it's written in Japanese, but you can see beautiful image of festivals.
http://www.hachimangu.or.jp/about/matsuri/index.html

Tsurugaoka Hachimangu
Access: 10 min walk from Kamakura station (Yokosuka Line)

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