Hasedera: Hydrangeas, and Crowds, and Caves, Oh My!

Three or four iris clumps near the gate leading to Kamakura's Hasedera Temple drew quite a crowd  Tuesday afternoon. You'll just have to imagine the irises since my camera was more interested in this enthusiastic photographer than flowers by that point in our garden marathon. Would he lean too far and fall into the pond? No. Almost, but not quite.

A thought crosses my mind.  Do Japanese tourists sneak pictures of me the way I sneak pictures of them?  Maybe I'll start combing my hair and slapping some mascara on my eyelashes before I leave the house.

Hasedera was by far the most crowded hydrangea mecca Weather Explorer and I visited this week.  We did not get in the long line waiting to climb up the hydrangea-bedecked hillside but took pictures of the people taking pictures of the people strolling through the flowers. 

Then, because this was Weather's first visit to Hasedera (and my jaw dropped when I heard that since it's still my favorite temple in Japan and I've been remiss in assuming she's been there), I dragged her through the cave of Buddhist saints.  Which was something of an Act of Contrition on my part, since that cave gives me the heebie-jeebies.  You have to bend at the waist to get from the first chamber to the second and the thought of earthquakes and being buried for eternity in that cave never fails to cross my mind when I make that bow.  Especially now when we are still feeling aftershocks almost every day.