Kamakura and Enoshima are both very close to Yokohama. I consider myself lucky that both were so close and filled with many beautiful locations and historic sites such as shrines and temples that could be easily explored during multiple day trips. Because it was so close, it was easy to hop on a 30 minute train ride to explore a historic city that many others in Japan would have to travel hours to get to. I went to Kamakura a few times, but only was able to make it once to Enoshima. These were names that I would hear constantly when other exchange students would talk about travelling around Yokohama, but the first time I would actually make a trip down to Kamakura with a group would be during Hastumoude, the first temple visit of the new year. This is one of the biggest events in Japan, and my partner unknowingly picked the most important temple in Kamakura to visit. We ended up waiting for hours to make our prayers and buy our good luck charms so we were only able to make it to half of the temples we planned to visit that day. Aside from being a little bummed, we were still extremely happy that we got to experience this event in Kamakura. My partner and I made our way down to Kamakura a few more times throughout the year and did plenty of exploring, which was very memorable. Similarly, we made our way down to Enoshima eventually, but it was toward the end of our study abroad. We still explored all that we could and enjoyed all the great scenery it had to offer. As these were very affordable day trips, I highly recommended any similar venture to anyone studying abroad to go out and explore a town or two over as you may never know what you may be missing out on.
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AuthorI am Kyle Sablan and I studied abroad at Yokohama National University (YNU) during the 2016-2017 academic year. This blog was created as one of the requirements for receiving the Gilman Scholarship. The purpose of this blog is to share my personal experience with everybody and encourage interest in studying abroad. Archives
April 2018
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