First of all: HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We are in Tokyo for New Year's. Today, New Year's Eve, we went to Kamakura by bus and train in the freezing snow and rain. It was -1C, slightly below freezing. We saw the "Daibutsu" Buddha which was constructed in 1252. This image of the Buddha is large and looks like, from ground level to the top of the head, is about 4 stories. In any event, it is made of cast bronze and weighs 121 tons, plus or minus.

Originally, it was housed in a wooden temple structure but, in 1498, a Tsunami roared up the valley where this very large image of the Buddha sits and destroyed the building. The Buddha was not damaged. The foundation stones of this temple building surround the Buddha's image.

In 1923, the great Kanto earthquake hit and still the Buddha survived. After being reinforced in the early 1960's, to make the structure more earthquake-proof, the Buddha has stood in the rain, wind and snow consistently.

Yesterday, we visited a special showing of the Terra Cotta Soldiers. These were brought over from a very large excavation in central China that discovered literally a "Terra Cotta Army" buried in honor of a former Emporer of China. Included in the exhibit were many examples of this ancient artistic project. What is interesting is that each figure, all are life-size, was based on the face, hands and posture of someone living at the time - 200 to 500 BC!!