by Ciaran MacCormaic
If the humidity is really getting to you and the only thing keeping you from melting into a puddle on the shokuinshitsu floor is your regular fix of Mr. Pocari's bottled Sweat, then I have found the ideal refuge for you. Where better to go in this heat than underground to the Ofuna Caves?
In the 1200s one of the head monks belonging ot the Shinden Sect in Kamakura decided, with a fine sense of irony, that hte best place to find enlightenment was in the dark. So, as an exercise in austerity and to keep them off the street, he set his men to digging a warren of tunnels into the hills. They were extended over the centuries and are made up of about 1500 metres of interconnected passages (although only 400m are open to the public) on three levels. An underground stream flows through the lowest level.
At intervals, the passages widen out into domed chambers. These were the monks' "exercise halls" and because bench presses hadn't yet been invented they had to work up a sweat instead by laboriously carving hundreds of images into the soft sandstone rock of the walls and ceilings. Several of the rooms have carvings of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals, others have hooks where presumably bells once hung, and others have gruesome-looking figures glaring down at you.
The entrance is behind the local shrine and htere is nothing more than an innocuous hole in the hill almost covered by a curtain of vegetation. The change in temperature on entering the tunnel is akin to the relief of stepping into a Lawson's on a typical July day. They even have one of those racks for storing umbrellas at the entrance. An unconfirmed story has it that hte head monks invented this contraption as a small concession of comfort to the chisellers, but such was their disdain for material wealth that they never registered the invention. One day, a certain Mr. Lawson visited the caves and realised that some people might pay good money for such comforts, so he successfully applied for a patent for the whatsitsname and started selling food and magazines around it. The first few years were lean but after deciding that caves were a shrinking market he diversified into providing off-site distractions for high school students and never looked back.
Instead of a cacophony of irashaimases, giggling teenagers and in-store entertainment shouting about "music showers" however, here you are greeted by silence. In fact a large part of the caves' appeal lies in the fact that not many people seem to know about them. For two years I lived just a 25-minute train ride away and never heard any mention of them. As you walk further in you might find that you've been whispering without realising it. The passages are dimly lit by a chain of naken light bulbs, so you have to carry a stick with a candle stuck on the end, which lends a lot to the atmosphere.
I've gone there twice recently and both times there was just one other set of curiosity-seekers. The second time it was a father with two young children. His little girl was petrified so I gave her my candle ... and then I got scared so I took it back. In front of one carving of a terrifying beast the father told the children that it was a monster that kidnapped young children who were bad. "Well it doesn't scare me" his 6-year-old son replied with unconvincing bravura. It was a surprise to me that Christianity doesn't have a monopoly on using scary religious imagery to keep its children in line.
Admission to the caves costs 400 yen and you can get there after a 10-minute bus ride from JR Ofuna Station. Go out of the North exit and across the river. To your right you'll see a bus stop on the other side of the road. Just ask the driver to let you out at the doubutsu (cave) stop. The shrine is across the road and next to Radon onsen, which is a surreal place in its own right as it is a part-pachinko, part-cabaret hall, and part-izakaya in which you stand out if you're not a centurion.
I haven't been yet but another local site which is reportedly well worth a visit is the statue of Kannon, the Goddess of Mercy, which dominates the hills around Ofuna. You may recognise her from the wooden effigy in Hase-Dera in nearby Kamakura. You can climb into the back of her head to have a look at a small shrine after which you can say you have managed to get inside the Japanese mind without sounding pompous.
Work on her started in 1929 but due to the tumultuous events in Japan at that time and for the next 30 years, she was only finished in 1960. So she lacks the historical importance of Hase-Dera or the Daibutsu but makes up for this with sheer size and presence, standing at more than 25m - two and a half times the size of the Daibutsu guarding the city below.
Incidentally, the English blurb to the Ofuna caves says that they weren't affected at all during the Great Kanto Earthquake. With enough advance notice, I know where I'll be going when the Next Big One comes.