Hidden Things In Kamakura - 1

In the back of Kenchoji is a shrine/temple dedicated to karasu tengu (crow beaked mountain goblin-gods). We found it on accident last time we were in Kamakura, only because we'd been hiking in the mountains and our descent landed us there. So we decided to come back. And good thing we did, too, because one of them blessed Laurie.



Okay, not really. But there are a lot of statues on the side of the hill that are very photogenic. Kenchoji could make so much money if they sold little army-figure-sized versions of these.




Turns out, this part of the temple was created in the 1890s after a priest had a dream in which he was told to enshrine the tengu, and in the war years the statues were confiscated because they were made of iron, so the ones we saw yesterday were put there in 1979. In any case, I was so excited to see it I had little trouble getting up the 250+ stairs.