Hōkoku-ji, the bamboo temple

photo by Kakidai · CC BY-SA 4.0

Two thousand bamboos, and you drink your tea inside the grove: last order at 15:30.

The ticket is only for the bamboo grove, and you pay at a counter to the left of the main hall: everything else in the grounds is free, including the thatched-roof bell tower from the eighteenth century, which is the oldest building in the temple. Inside the grove the path passes some yagura, the burial chambers carved into the rock face. You have your matcha at the Kyūkōan, seated at the far end of the grove, but you have to decide as you go in: the last order is at 15:30 and you cannot go back.

A Rinzai temple founded in the fourteenth century, known for its grove of about two thousand mōsō bamboos that fills the far end of the grounds. The present buildings are reconstructions dating from after the 1923 Kantō earthquake; the thatched-roof bell tower is from the eighteenth century. In the rock face at the far end of the grove there are some yagura, the medieval cliff tombs that number in the thousands in Kamakura.

ℹ️ Open 9:00–16:00. Tickets 400 yen from high school age up, 200 for elementary and junior high school students; matcha with dry sweets costs 600 yen extra, served from 9:00 to 15:30. ⚠️ Cash only, and no bookings: you get in as space allows, and at weekends and on long holiday weekends the wait can be long. It may close in bad weather. Closed from 29 December to 3 January. Silence requested in the bamboo grove, tripods not allowed. Zazen for beginners every Sunday morning. Bus from Kamakura to the Jōmyōji bus stop, ten minutes, then five on foot; on foot from the station it takes thirty-five to forty minutes. ⚠️ Lots of stairs and slopes: on 4travel accessibility is rated 2.75 out of 5.

🚉 Kamakura · 29 min walk

Sources: houkokuji.or.jp · houkokuji.or.jp · 4travel.jp · kamakuraguide.com

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