Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Saru chie! That's a monkey's idea.

The Kamakura Museum is located just off to the side of the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine. No photographs are allowed inside the museum, so here is a link that has one interior photo. There are impressive statues inside dating back to the 13th century. One of them had intense eyes that seem to follow you as you walk by. That statue is grouped together with other demon statues from hell.

The other half of the museum is a doll museum. Hina Matsuri is a doll festival. Those dolls are set up everywhere this time of year. There are some really old ones on display in this museum.
The entrance into the museum.
Yes, I did mean to take this photo. There were a bunch of high school boys sitting all around me on the train and all of their shoes and pants looked the same. They look so nice from a distance.
There are throngs of Japanese high schoolers all over the place because they are taking their final trip. They are required to take a trip to someplace in Japan and learn something. The tour guide I was with asked some of the boys where they had come from and what they had learned. They came from Omiya to Kamakura, but they could not tell him anything they had learned.
Another thing I learned to day was a Japanese expression. Saru chie. It means "monkey's idea" and it is used to describe something that seemed good at the time, but ends up being bad for a lot of people.

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