[Date & Time] Thursday, March 29, at 9:30～17:30[Spots] Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine, Kotokuin Temple (Great Buddha), Hasedera Temple, Kosokuji Temple, Engakuji Temple, and Tokeiji Temple
[Visitors] 1 Austrian Couple
[Language] German
[Attendants] 1 KSGG member
All of us were glad to have a nice day for sightseeing under the blue sky above Kamakura after quite an absence. Unluckily, only about 20 to 30 percent of the cherry blossoms were in bloom. However, the wife, whose hobby is taking pictures of flowers, took many pictures of Asian spring flowers including cherry, Japanese apricot blossoms still in bloom, daffodils, and kobus magnolia.
Next day, on the afternoon of March 30, a wedding ceremony of an international couple was held in Meiji Shrine in Tokyo. The bride was an official working at the Japanese Embassy in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo; the groom was an Austrian working for UNHCR. They met in Africa and, on that day, wearing Japanese kimono, they got married on that day in the capital city of Japan, where the bride was born.
It was the groom's parents that I guided around Kamakura the day before. The bride hoped that her parents-in-law would enjoy the cherry blossoms in an old capital, Kamakura to the full. So she decided to get married in March and asked KSGG to guide them in Kamakura. Beautiful cherry blossoms in Kamakura must have met the brides' warmhearted wishes.