Kamakura and how the world is small

They say it's a small world [after all] and I must agree for I have learned this to be true during my day trip to Kamakura last August.

One Sunday during my stay in Tokyo, I decided to go to Kamakura to meet my friend Rachel. She's from Texas and I met her during the 2012 Summer Course held in UP SURP last July 2012. She visited the Philippines for a week last June 2013 and then flew to Japan for her two-month internship. Thankfully, our schedules gave us good timing to meet up (a little over a week before her flight back to Texas and my flight back to Manila)! I was really excited because I'll be meeting a foreign friend in a land that is foreign to both of us. How cool is that?

I met Rachel and two of her British co-interns Lois and Chris at Kamakura Station.

big lunch for only JPY1000! Much cheaper compared to Tokyo

When Lois learned that my purpose in Japan was to participate at the Todai Innovation Summer Program (TISP) 2013, she told me that she had wanted to apply for the same program but decided against it because she didn't want to take a leave from her internship. Turns out, two of my TISP 2013 co-participants are Lois's classmates in Oxford. We were all surprised by the coincidence! Small world, indeed. Eventually, I told Lois's classmates that I met her in Kamakura through a common friend and they were like "Whoa!"

taro-matcha soft-serve ice cream to battle the summer heat

jet stream

walking from Daibutsu to Hasedera

Hase Station of Enoshima line (it looks old but I think it looks really cool!)

Studio Ghibli shop near Kamakura Station!!!

sadly but not surprisingly, stuff were expensive

I've always wanted this kind of glass chimes.
This one wins more brownie points because it's Totoro... but it was so expensive!
Now I suddenly remember that I forgot to buy something like this in Tokyo... darn.

ramen for dinner!

And this is why whenever I need to say goodbye to friends from different places, I don't simply say "Goodbye". I say, "See you around (the world)" because it's actually possible.

PS: Around the same time, another co-participant from the 2012 Summer Course, who's also from Texas, posted a picture on Facebook with herself and two of my former colleagues in UP ICE. They were all in Malaysia, participating in another summer school. It was amusing.

PPS: One of my [Japanese] co-participants in the TISP 2013 used to be a classmate of my friend/orgmate/co-worker Sty when he did an exchange student program in Todai. How's that about the world being small?