The Great Buddha of Kamakura

Time for another retrospective post from the Kodak era. This time we’re off to Kamakura, a historic coastal city on the Miura peninsula south of Tokyo. The city is renowned for Kamakura Daibutsu, otherwise known as The Great Buddha of Kamakura, at Kotoku-in temple.

Kamakura is one of Japan's ancient capitals, alongside Kyoto and Nara. It served as the seat of the Kamakura shogunate for almost 150 years from 1185 to 1333. This was also Japan’s first military government. As a result, the city is filled with many ancient and note-worthy temples and shrines.

Kamakura Daibutsu is a large bronze statue of a seated Buddha. It sits on a low-profile stone podium. Including the base, it measures 13.35 metres high and weighs about 93 tonnes. According to temple records, the statue dates from around 1252 and thus was cast at the height of the Kamakura shogunate.

It was created to replace an earlier giant wooden statue destroyed by a storm in 1248. The bronze replacement was originally enclosed in a temple hall. However, this building was swept away by a tsunami in 1498. Since then, the Great Buddha has stood in the open air.

I visited Kamakura and spent the day exploring its many hillside temples and shrines during a business trip to Japan. My company’s Tokyo office was a bit of a problem child at the time. As a result, I made many trips to Japan to support the team, usually staying at the Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku.

My first business trip to Tokyo was a three-week secondment in August 2001. At the time, I was the Managing Director of our Australian office and was asked to spend time in the office training the executive team on improving their business management skills.

Following this trip, I returned regularly between 2002 and 2005 after becoming Regional Director for Asia Pacific. At the time, we'd lost our local managing director and had an expat in place acting in a temporary capacity. The situation's complexity meant that I stayed often for several weeks and thus regularly found myself with a weekend to fill.

To be brutally honest, I’m not sure exactly when I visited Kamakura. I never dated the photos I took. At a guess, it was sometime in 2002. It takes about 90 minutes to reach the city by train from Shinjuku. Most visitors disembark at Hase Station, then make their way uphill to the Kamakura Daibutsu tracing a popular tourist route past several Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines.

However, I decided to get off the train at Kita Kamakura station. From here I walked down the tree-lined streets of old Kamajura toward Hase Station. Along the way, I passed numerous immaculate shrines, including Engakuji, one of Japan's leading Zen temples, before finally finishing up at Great Buddha. Thanks to regular tourist stops, it took me several hours to complete the walk.  You can see a photo above of the wonderful Zen garden at Engakuji.  It was undergoing a little maintenance the day I visited.

Kenchoji, Kamakura’s oldest Zen temple, was also memorable. I was captivated by the defensive demon statues guarding the steps leading up to Hansōbō, the temple's large Shinto shrine. Known as Tengu, these mythical creatures are similar to goblins. Some of the statues had wings and a beak, a tengu genre known as Karasu-tengu (crow tengu) because of their avarian appearance.

The Great Buddha of Kamakura an impressive sight. As it comes into view beyond the ticket gate its size and scale is immediately clear. You instantly appreciate why it’s designated as a national treasure of Japan and is considered one of the nation’s most famous icons. Where else can you gaze upon a pair of one-metre wide eyes resting in eternal contemplation?

Farewell Rhonda

On Monday we farewelled Rhonda, Garry's mother, with a wonderful service. It was held in the Garden Chapel at Castlebrook Memorial Park Rouse Hill. It rained like crazy the night before.  However, as the service began the weather lifted and we enjoyed dry conditions.

Attendance exceeded everyone's expectations. The chapel seats 120 people. We'd anticipated that maybe 100 people would attend. In the end, almost 200 showed up (or at least that's our best guess as more than 173 people signed the condolence book - excluding immediate family members such as Garry and I, his brother and sister and their families, plus boyfriends and girlfriends and a few school friends).

Murray asked me to lead the service. To help me prepare my opening and closing remarks I leveraged notes from both my parent's funerals. I also took advantage of a rainy day in Samoa and spent the time drafting everything. I'm relieved the service was received well. It proved a superb blend of formality and informality with plenty of laughter and tears. Garry's brother, David, delivered a eulogy filled with anecdotes, capturing Rhonda's character perfectly. 

Murray was delighted by everything. I also received plenty of accolades for my role. The service was streamed online. As a result, I could replay a recording and experience it from the audience’s perspective. I must admit that the service flowed seamlessly and was a truly fitting tribute to an exceptional woman.

Afterwards, everyone retired to The Fiddler Hotel for an informal reception. Once again the numbers exceeded expectations. However, the hotel did a superb job of accommodating extra tables and additional catering at short notice.  The family then spent the rest of the afternoon reminiscing in the sunshine at a large table in the hotel's garden bar.