Recently, I started receiving e-mails from Professor Taki Kuroda, an old friend of my dad's. Now retired, Taki (as he insisted I call him) enthusiastically invited me to his home in Yokohama within days after finding out I was working in Tokyo. To preserve my family honor, I accepted.

Yokohama is Japan's most famous port city, the site of Commodore Matthew Perry's historic 1854 landing and home to dozens of historical museums which I fortunately managed to avoid visiting. Instead, I was taken to nearby Kamakura, home to an overwhelming number of Shinto and Buddhist temples, including the Daibutsu, Japan's second-largest Buddha statue.

I can understand if the prospect of a day-long Shinto-Buddhist shrine-o-rama sounds less than invigorating, but in truth, under Kamakura's blazing September sun and tropical humidity, wandering slowly through temples and monasteries is just about the only thing that makes sense. The weather lent a subtly spiritual overtone to the proceedings, though I'm sure the other seasons have their own magic.

I'm not much for picture-taking, but Taki had a digital camera and I have a blog, so I tried to take a few snapshots where the opportunities presented themselves.

The city of Kamakura turned out to be a cross between Santa Monica and what I assume Honolulu looks like.

Always in pairs, one open-mouthed, the other baring teeth, the Goma-Inu stand guard outside the Shinto shrines. I decided the toothy one projected the more convincing air of menace. Note that "Goma-Inu" means "lion-dog," as opposed to "frog-pig," which would have been my guess.