Enoshima and checking off a bucket list item (pt. 1)

Well, if nothing else, on this trip I finally got to check off an item on my bucket list that has been bugging me on every trip I’ve made here. Until I went to Enoshima earlier, I had not actually gotten a really good picture of Mount Fuji, I had always had fog, or clouds, or haze, or lack of sunlight to prevent me from seeing the mountain clearly.

So, feeling somewhat hopeful, but not expecting a lot, I set off in the morning to go to the town of Ofuna, in order to catch the “top-end” of the Shonan Monorail, a suspended monorail train line that was built in 1970, running about 4 miles from Ofuna Station to Enoshima Station. It’s pretty neat, for nearly all of the line the train cars hang from overhead rails, all but one of the stations is also high in the air. It can be a bit unnerving to watch the train travel, especially from inside watching as a station in the air comes into view, with people on the platform, or when leaving the station, watching the platform fall away beneath you!

The Monorail ends at the seaside town of Enoshima, which is on the Shonan Coast, along the Pacific Ocean. It’s been a getaway spot for tourists in Japan for centuries, and shares a lot in common with other beach towns around the world. The town of Enoshima is the hub of an older train line, the Enoshima Densha, which everyone calls the “Enoden”. The train line runs from Kamakura in the east to Fujisawa in the west, and it’s been running since the early 1900’s. The train cars are still in use, many of them, and they are definitely unique.

Without a doubt, seeing amazing things is the real reason to go to a tourist town, and coming out of the Monorail station at Enoshima I was happily surprised that I got to finally see Mount Fuji! I have been waiting almost 18 years to see it, and at last, there it was! There was a photo observation deck at the top of the station and I managed to get plenty of good photos! If I don’t manage to see much more of Japan (more on that in another post) at least I could check that off my bucket list!

The Enoshima Enoden station is just down the hill from the Monorail station, so on my way to the island I walked past it, hoping to see if the little sparrows were still there from when I last saw them, and they were! Two of the guard rails have 4 little steel sparrows on them, and the locals dress them in hand-knitted warm clothes!

Speaking of birds, the birds in the Shonan Beach area including Enoshima are fierce! There are wild hawks, kites and other predators that have decided it’s easier to attack the big humans and take their food, than it is to hunt! All over the island and beach area are signs saying “be careful” and “don’t carry food in your hand and eat outdoors”, they really will swoop down and grab food out of your hand! I’ve seen hawks in flocks circling overhead at the restaurant section near the bridge to the mainland, just waiting for their chance! I think the hawks also catch and eat their competitors, or at least chase them away, I didn’t see many pigeons or seagulls around Enoshima.

I was lucky enough to go during a work week, and didn’t have to fight the crowds. Also, the island of Enoshima is loaded with shrines to various gods and dragons are a big part of the history. As expected there were many places where cherry blossoms and other flowers were blooming.

At the top of the island there were the ruins of a huge garden planted and owned by an Englishman named Samuel Cocking, who built it during the Meiji era. The garden itself is still there, carefully maintained, but there are only foundations left of the original buildings.

It’s kind of neat that the city of Fujisawa, which basically runs the town on Enoshima, made a point to become “sister cities” with other towns around the world, including Miami Beach, Florida and Windsor Ontario Canada.

The biggest attraction other than the shrines is the “Sea Candle”, a large observation tower at the peak of the island. Unfortunately for you all, I wasn’t brave enough to go up in it to take photos, I still have a problem with heights, but it’s presence is unavoidable, and apparently at night on special occasions they light up the tower.

The main attraction for the Shonan area surrounding the island is the Shonan Beach, which stretches on both sides of the bridge leading to Enoshima. The water often becomes excited enough that the waves draw surfers, and many people like to enjoy wind surfing as well. The beaches are beautiful and clean, and very popular during the main season.

Well, that’s all I’m going to show for now, I’ll post a part 2 sometime in the next few days! Here are a few more flowers from this first part!

Nerdtour 2012: End of the line…

Well, that’s it for the trip, back home in Alexandria, in my newly remodeled apartment. Feeling major post-trip letdown, dealing with a new sore throat and my body telling me it’s 12 hours later than it is, and trying to figure out where to put stuff in my apartment that won’t fit anymore. I did manage to find where they put my car keys, and made it to the grocery store at 3:00 AM, plus retrieved all my mail (including the “Vote for Me!” flyers, heh).

I’ll have other posts from the Nerdtour, but chronologically these were the last few pictures I took on the trip. More to come as I work through the other 12,000 pictures!

The last day in Japan was spent wasting time riding the rails, since there was about 7 hours between checkout time at the hotel and check-in time at the airport. I suggested to John we take a quick trip down to Chiba city, which is about half-way between Tokyo and Narita, so we could use up a day on the 4 day JR East Pass we each had, and maybe see some last sights.

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Narita Station
Such perfect weather to brighten one’s spirits. Narita station in the rain…
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Narita station platform, with one lone person, in the rain
Narita station platform number 1
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Naturally, it was rainy and cold, but the train ride was uneventful, and we pulled into Chiba proper, at the JR station downtown. Chiba, like Tokyo has a monorail system, but unlike Tokyo this one is suspended from the rail, and goes much further. It took a bit to find the actual station, but when I did, I was impressed by its beauty and functionality, as well as its little quirks!

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Chiba station area, with buildings and artwork
The main plaza outside the Chiba station.
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station location map with guide to local buildings
There are maps to local places all over Tokyo and other cities, mainly because they don’t name or number the majority of streets, so you need to know where the local landmarks are. I noticed there are a lot of places in stations where you can go to donate blood, as noted here at the top of the photo.
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Chiba city skyline
Yes, it was this gloomy under the station looking out at Chiba city…
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escalator and stairs at Chiba Monorail station
At the station, you have your choice of stairs or escalator, but look closely at the stairs…
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stairway with illustrations on the risers
… you can find out just how many calories you can burn by taking the steps! They even have helpful, supportive cartoon characters to urge you on!
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The monorail itself only runs two cars at a time, suspended from tracks about 50 feet in the air. The stations are also up in the air, naturally, and are located at many important and popular places in town, such as City Hall and the Sports Center. On the way to Chiba, I noted that one of the stops on the JR line also had a monorail stop, in the town called Tsuga. So, I figured if we took the monorail to one end, in Chiba-minato, we could take it back out to Tsuga and catch the JR train back to Narita, while seeing a lot of Chiba in the process.

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monorail cars
There goes the monorail…
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monorail car
… out over the city …
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monorail cars
… with no visible means of support! ^__^
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downtown with buildings and railroad yard
Downtown Chiba in the rain, with railroad tracks…
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rain-soaked trees with autumn foliage
Even in the rain, a bit of fall color…
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vividly painted monorail cars
Aw, puppy! An ad painted on the sides of the monorail cars in Chiba….
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I figured Chiba-minato, down by the docks and near the port, would be somewhat picturesque, despite the weather. What I didn’t know until we got there was that the annual Chiba Ekiden was going on, which ran on the street directly below the Chiba-minato station! In Japan an Ekiden is basically a relay race combined with a marathon, where teams of runners take turns following a 46 kilometer marathon, broken up into segments. The course has certain segments for women as well as men, so that you enter as a co-ed team to race. We were at about the half-way mark of the second mens’ segment, where it looked like there were only a handful of teams, since I only saw about a dozen men running under the station. I managed to exercise my Japanese to find out what was going on, by asking one of the staff who had blocked off the side streets. Communication!

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hundreds of bicycles parked at the station
Japan is a big bicycle culture, as well as a train culture, and all stations have a large area to park bikes…
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signs on the station wall at Chiba-minato
Monorail and JR lines. Technically I could have ridden the JR line all the way back to Etchujima, near Monzennakacho!
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many overpasses, above an empty street
Chiba-minato station…
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rain-soaked pigeon atop a roof
“Hey, I’m a bird, I have to be out in this mess, what’s your excuse, human?”
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empty street
Waiting for the Ekiden runners…
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runner in marathon
The Chiba Ekiden passes by
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runner in marathon
Ekiden race participant
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Once the race had passed by, they quickly and efficiently re-opened the street to traffic, and I figured I’d wander around the station area for a bit, looking for quirky and interesting things. Didn’t really have much chance, since time was passing, but I did manage to catch some local “wildlife” as well as a neat shuttle bus!

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unusual shuttle bus design, faux 1930's style
Pretty interesting design, kind of 30’s style. For no other reason than they can, and it makes it stand out!
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unusual shuttle bus design, mock-30's styling
O Japan, that has such quirkiness in it! I really like the style they added to this plain shuttle bus design!
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chapel or meeting area in Chiba-minato
Wasn’t sure if this was an actual church or not, but it’s possible.
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information kiosk with golden birds sculpture
Sure, you could have a plain information map, but why not touch it up with a bit of class, throw on a golden sculpture of birds taking off!
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Once we finished taking the few photos, it was time to catch the monorail out to Tsuga. We managed to ride the cars that had won the “Good Design Award” for 2012. They were definitely stylish, and apparently could be run automated, but we had a driver on this one. The trip back to Tsuga was fairly quick, even given all the stops, and we caught the train in Tsuga back to Narita.

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award-winning monorail car
Winner, 2012 “Good Design Award”. It shows…
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scene of the town from Monorail
There are definite advantages to building a suspended (or otherwise elevated) train, since the only real footprint of ground use is the area taken up by the pillars.
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Chiba area from the monorail
Rainy Chiba, from the monorail, a view out the cockpit up front…
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entrance to Tsuga monorail station
Coming in to a monorail station can be a bit unnerving, but also kind of exciting, in a “sci-fi movie” kind of way…
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Tsuga near the train station
Wonderful downtown Tsuga, in the rain…
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Tsuga monorail station
The Monorail station at Tsuga
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monorail shrine
They put up little shrines just about everywhere, for various local gods…
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Getting back to the hotel in Narita to pick up our luggage, I started getting a bit concerned about how long it would take to get back to the airport. Finding out that we had just missed the airport shuttle from the hotel, John and I used our 21st Century technology to find out the next train from Narita to the airport. It turned out we had about 8 minutes to get to the station, fortunately the hotel was only a 4 minute walk away! We made it to the platform with minutes to spare, got to the airport about 3 hours before the plane was scheduled to leave, and spent that last time wandering the airport.

The flight back from Japan was… eventful. But I’ll have more on that in another post.