Easter morning and I prepared a delicious breakfast with of course some cooked eggs and raisin bread. In the afternoon we went to our friends, Juli and Stuart, where the kids colored eggs and then hid them for eachother in several turns.

It was still raining heavily, but by noon we went out anyway to go watch the “Yabusame”, archery on horseback demonstration at the Tsurugoaka Hachimangu shrine and luckily the weather cleared.

The “Yabusame” shows the inherited Samurai culture of today. The samurai political administration that took place in the city of Kamakura developed a unique culture that actively incorporated Zen Buddhism and other cultural elements of the Song dynasty and reflected Kamakura’s natural environment. This led to a heightening of the spirit and beliefs of the samurai that would play an extremely inportant role in shaping Japanese culture and making Kamakura unique among mediaval cities in East Asia.

The evenement started with a procession of

first the samurai archers, and

the judges with the targets.

The Shogun.

In one run the Samurai had to shoot three targets in a row along a long path.

Preparing his horse to make the run.

There were lots of people, but we were still able to see some nice shots.

The horses ran very fast.

Right on the the target!

It was a wonderful event.