January 13th, 2015
*photo heavy*
Little sis, mom and I got up early to explore Enoshima, it took almost 2 hours to get there, changing trains several times. The last one was at Ofuna, where we had to change to the Shonan monorail. The view from the monorail was pretty though, you could see Mount Fuji clearly in the distance.
Once we got off the station, we had to walk on foot to Enoshima island. It only took 15 minutes so we took our time. The beach area and the roads just before the connecting bridge to the island really reminded me of St.Kildas back home, mom and sis also agreed and we were all suddenly craving for godpa's food (he owns a restaurant by the beach in St.Kildas). The view of Mount Fuji from the beach was really clear at noon. So we had to stop and take obligatory shots.
Once we crossed the bridge, several restaurants were in sight. We decided to have lunch first, and since Shirasu (white fish that are only 1cm, or in Singapore, they call them ikan bilis) was the speciality of Enoshima, the three of us ordered them but in different styles. I got them half raw and half cooked, topped with tuna, while mom got them tempura and sis omelette, all served on top of rice.
After lunch, we went to explore the island. There was a street of souvenir shops and food stalls along the way before Enoshima shrine. Mom did some souvenir shopping.
I really love the sign on the left, I thought it was pretty cute. We didn't bother much about going into temples, but Enoshima is definitely way more quieter and way less touristy compared to Kamakura. I like how empty it is. After living in Japan for quite a while, you tend to want to explore the more "obsure" parts of the country.
These were pink instead of just the usual because it's specially made for couples/love, which I thought was pretty cute. And no, I didn't bother writing my wish down. Along the way, we found a short-cut where you had to pay 1000yen to use escalators around the island. It also covered the entrance fees to other attractions on the island. Since mom's legs aren't strong enough, we decided that using the escalators would be a good idea, it also saved time for us.
These were taken just outside Samuel Cocking Garden. The building you see in the second picture is a light house (also known as Sea Candle) which we were saving to visit near sunset. The view was really nice since you could see Mount Fuji from almost anywhere on the island, also I haven't been to beach or sea in quite some time, so it was a nice change. It has been mostly mountains and alps on my last couple of trips around Japan.
We slowly made our way to the tip of the island, where there were cliffs and a cave. That was the place I wanted to see most in Enoshima. There were more temple and shrines along the way, a lot of dragons on things.
It took quite a while to get to the cliffs and caves, constantly going down the stairs made me worried of how I am actually going to climb all of them back up. My stamina is so bad, add smoking and you know it's shit.
We finally made it all the way down to the stone plates and mom didn't want to go down with us. Little sis and I went to explore anyways, there were some people fishing, and it was pretty interesting from there. Again, I could see Mount Fuji in the distance. The waves would hit the rocks every now and then, it was a first for me - seeing anything like this.
There were also a lot of falcons flying above and around the jagged cliffs. Little sis was paranoid that they will poop on her, haha.
After taking enough ~artsy fartsy~ photos, we finally went back up to join mom and explore Iwaya Caves. There were two caves, people handed us candles at the first cave we went to. It was a cool (I don't know what other word to use?) experience, it was really dark in the cave. The cave was small but had some Budhha statues, and some of them were beheaded already, probably corroded over time.
We didn't need candles for the second cave we went to, there was a dragon statue in it. The second cave is dedicated to a legendary dragon that used to terrorise the area. There was a drum placed next to it, it stated that you should make a wish and hit the drum twice and your wish will come true. I just did it to hit the drum, haha.
It was fun actually, exploring these two caves, even though tiny. Maybe because I have never been to a cave before in my life. After exploring the caves, we were all dreading the climb the stairs back up to the main part of the island. To my surprise, I wasn't that tired by the end of it, just needed a glass of water, so we headed to a nearby cafe for tea.
After tea, we walked back to Samuel Cocking garden. There were stalls selling octopus rice crackers and we decided to try. They seriously - just put fresh octopus onto the pan and smash it till it becomes a cracker! Little sis and I were so amazed, it was really yummy.
Enoshima Daishi was nearby, so we decided to take a look but there was nothing much, little sis just took some silly photos.
It was only 3ish, and we were still waiting for the sunset, we decided to go into the garden anyways since mom wanted to see tulips. I still don't like flowers because of my allergies, but thankfully I'm not allergic to tulips, if so, I would have been sneezing non stop.
We went up to the lighthouse and normally I don't like to go up towers or those observatories where you can see everything from high up, but this one was worth going because you could see Mount Fuji clearly. The sunset was really worth waiting in the cold for, everyone was at standby with their dslr, smartphones at the ready to take those "postcard" looking photos. The sun finally set at about 5pm, and we made our way down the light house.
There was an illumination show going at the garden, still nothing like Nabana No Sato or even close to the one at Tokyo Midtown for Christmas but little sis was happy she got to see some illuminations.
We slowly made our way down through all the shrines and souvenir shops to get back at the start to go to Enospa. It has some hot springs and outdoor pools but since it was too cold, we just decided to stay at the hot spring. We spent about an hour soaking ourselves in the water, and another hour having dinner. Seafood at Enoshima is so fresh, the menu was 95% seafood dishes. We finally checked out at about 9pm and was dreading to walk back because it was so cold but luckily, the spa offers free service to the station, so we hopped onto the van and they dropped us off at Enoshima Station.
It took another 2 hours to get back and I fell asleep on the train. Going to Enoshima was a nice escape from busy Tokyo since it's so quiet there, and it wasn't crowded so we didn't have to push through heaps of people. We could just relax and take our time looking at things. I always like adventures like this, and after so many days of themed things, this was such a nice break.
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