Kamakura: a comprehensive day trip guide 🚞

- how to get there -

It’s about an hour journey from Tokyo to Kamakura. We were lucky to have a direct train line there and since it’s one hour, we wanted to treat ourselves to get comfortable seats for the journey and booked the Green Car seats. These seats are wider with a folding table and reclinable!

The Green Car seats were ¥1010 each as an additional ticket cost to the train fare. Do note you will need to tap into the station using your Suica (or whichever transport card you have) to enter the train platform.

You’ll then hand the small orange tickets from the machine to the train conductor when they come round to check.

We didn’t know this earlier but you need only pay ¥750 if you tag the Green Car ticket into your Suica card using the machine at the train stations or on the Suica App if you’re not purchasing the physical card.

If you do this, you don’t get an extra small orange ticket, for the conductor to check. Instead, when you get to an empty seat, simply tap your card on the overhead sensor. You’ll notice the light turn from red to green, indicating that the seat is taken by you.

- enoden tickets -

Kamakura is famous for the enoden, a yellow and green train that runs between Kamakura and Fujisawa with stops to Enoshima.

Made popular by the opening scene in Slam Dunk the anime of the train going by the ocean, it’s a hot photo spot.

Instead of paying for each trip you take using the Suica card, you can purchase the day pass at ¥800. You can purchase this right outside the station using the machine or at the counter.

There is also the option to purchase a pass that covers both train and bus but the train route doesn’t cover all the way to include the famous stations so I don’t recommend it. You can pay for bus rides by Suica anyway.

- shirasu -

Kamakura is known for shirasu, a white bait fish, or better known to us an anchovies or ikan bilis but bigger.

They serve them raw, boiled, or as tempura. If you’re super adventurous, do try them raw here as you can’t really find them anywhere else served raw.

We weren’t as daring so we kept to the cooked versions. The tempura version was much tastier so I recommend that over the boiled!

- places to go -

Apart from the famous station Kamakura-kōkōmae, which is a super super hot photo spot, there are many other things to see and do here!

I also don’t recommend the station cos it’s very crowded and honestly you’re jostling with some tourists who may not be very considerate of other people. We encountered someone who just stood in the middle of the crossing for their photo/video opportunity and I’m sure they were caught in others photos/videos there.

We skipped out on most of the famous temples like Hase-dera, Kotoku-in, and Zeniarai Benten Shrine.

We took the enoden all the way to Enoshima instead at hopes that we could spot Mt Fuji, which you could if you’re lucky that the skies are clear that day! Alas we were not as lucky but we did a stroll along the beach and there were barely any tourists there, we enjoyed it so much!

We stumbled upon a pet store and was surprised to find that it was also a pet cafe. Since we love animals, we spent ¥2186 for the entrance fee giving us 30mins to spend with rabbits, cats, and hedgehogs + 2 drinks! We spent more time here than we care to admit but the cats were so pretty?! 😍

We also took the journey down to Hokoku-ji for the bamboo forest, it was ¥400 per person for the entrance fee and you can top up for the matcha that they serve within the gardens. We didn’t as we arrived close to their closing time but it was a great decision because there was barely anyone there also and so we got very nice pictures here.

I’d also say that the bamboos were very well maintained, even sturdier than the ones I saw in Arashiyama, Kyoto!!!

And of course, do take a stroll down Komachi-dori, the shopping street that runs adjacent to Kamakura station to pick up souvenirs, eat or shop!

- overall -

Take this day trip out of Tokyo if you have time to spare in your itinerary for a slower pace, and see life outside of the busy city! We all could use the space to breathe a little ☺️

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