Tag: nerdtour

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!

Yoyogi Park, Gardens next to Meiji Jingu

After finishing up wandering around the grounds of the Meiji Jingu Shrine, and as the sun was heading down the sky, I figured it was about time to check out Yoyogi Park, literally right next to the shrine. The entrance to Yoyogi is a large plaza, with abstract art embedded in the stones of the plaza. I’m not sure what they’re supposed to be, but they are interesting.

Yoyogi Park has a large garden area, with plenty of paths to wander through them. There is also a large pond with fountains that are lit with various colors in the evening, but these were being renovated when I was there, and they won’t be done until after I leave. I was disappointed and looking forward to seeing them! But, the flower gardens didn’t disappoint, they were amazingly varied and almost all in bloom. Apparently they won an award as well!

As I walked on the paths I ended up towards the back of the park, where I found all of the cherry trees, which were in still full bloom. There were of course a whole lot of people there, also enjoying the blossoms and having fun in groups of families, school classes and office staffs. There were quite a few foreign tourists as well, but thankfully it wasn’t crowded, and we all could enjoy the beauty.

So, it was the end of a long day, not as long as others, but I got back to my apartment nicely tired. I didn’t do anything special the next day since it was raining, but the Tuesday the 9th was forecast to be nice, so I determined to go somewhere that I had a chance to see Mount Fuji!

First blossom day, part 2: Shinjuku Chuo Park

So, after leaving Sumida Park, I took the train to Shinjuku, about 30 minutes away. I put “Shinjuku Park” in the train schedule app, which gave me directions to what I thought was the main cherry blossom park in Shinjuku. When I got there, I was a bit underwhelmed by the park. It turns out there was a good reason for that, I had put in the wrong destination, I should have put in Shinjuku Gyoen Botanical Park, which is much larger and more impressive! (I’ll go there some other time, but it won’t be quite the same!) In the words of Jack Reacher, “Details matter!”

So, I didn’t see quite as much at the park as I wanted, but I did get some nice shots of things in the park near sunset. The park is basically in the middle of official buildings, like the Tokyo Municipal Government building, a very impressive building that has free observation decks (which I hope to get to while I’m here).

Tokyo also has some unique architecture, like this building, nicknamed the “Cocoon Building”.

So, after I entered the park, I noticed that there were some trees around the central lawn, and some people taking advantage of the day to get some late-afternoon “hanami” in. There weren’t that many people, but there were some families and some school kids there, and the setting sun did make for some interesting shots.

There was also a local shrine, which had some nice trees on their grounds.

All in all, it was a nice wrap-up of a very nice day, one of the first on my trip so far! 

The next day, Saturday the 5th, I went to a much larger and nicer park,
the Koishikawa Botanical Garden, but that’s for another post, soon!

Some night shots along the Sumidagawa, bridges and birds and boats, oh my…

So, I set out on a chilly day that wasn’t raining much, intending to go to Sumida Park, up near Sky Tree Tower, but when I got to Kiyosumi-shirakawa Station, I discovered that I had left my Suica fare card back at the apartment. I didn’t want to make the mile or so walk back just to get the card and walk the mile or so to the station again, so I decided to just roam around the Kiyosumi area, to see what I could see. I ended up going further north, up to Morishita, almost halfway to Sky Tree, but it was getting late and I figured I’d better head back south toward Monzennakacho and my nice warm, dry apartment!

So, I made my way back to the river, because I knew there was a park and walking path pretty much all the way down, on both sides of the river. I got to see part of the city skyline, and Sky Tree of course. There was also this huge bird, I think it was a heron, perched on the railing, casually walking down the rail, I got within 5 feet of it, and it just looked at me! I’ve noticed the birds are all remarkably calm around people here!

I got a bit turned around a couple of times, because I thought for some reason I was south of Kiyosumi, but I was actually north. Once I got my bearings, I got to catch them lighting up the bridges, some of which were historic!

At the end, I decided to try to see some more of the illuminated cherry trees along the canal in Monzennakacho, before retiring for the night.

Sneak peek at some upcoming pics from Thursday and Friday

Hey, all, I thought I’d just put up a few uncleaned-up shots from Thursday and Friday. I’m off to get more, and I’ll post more later, including any I take today!

A nice Sunday in the park

So Sunday was a nice day, relatively speaking, as it wasn’t bad temperature-wise, it almost made it to 60 degrees, and the sun was shining. Towards the afternoon, though, the wind picked up and started to have a wind chill, a prelude to an ugly week. But I did manage to see a few cherry trees blooming, and found a neat little thing for kids along the way.

So, the cherry trees I found in Etchujima Park, along the bank of the Sumida river south of my apartment were mostly full.

There was a short section of the trail along the river where they had an area set aside for kids. What was neat about it was that it was a place where kids could learn street and traffic signals, safely and without interfering with actual traffic! The section had painted crosswalks, and working, timed stop lights and walk-don’t walk signals, but smaller than the real thing, and made lower to the ground so little kids could see them. I thought that was a really neat idea, I think it would be good for kids in the US to learn on! It was also helpful that kids were learning how to ride their bikes on the same trail, and they could learn to be responsible drivers, too!

I didn’t get many more pictures, as I met a couple and their son, tourists from California, and talked with them for a while. We talked about what they planned on the trip, and I gave them some (hopefully) helpful things that I’ve learned about being a tourist in Japan. It started to get cold, and I didn’t want to keep them, they weren’t really dressed for it, and I needed to get to the drug store to get some soap and laundry detergent. I did manage to see a few more neat things before it got too cold to hold a camera for long. In hindsight I wish I’d gotten an earlier start.

Some pictures on my first walkabout.

So, Wednesday morning broke nice and clear, except for the dust blowing over Tokyo from China, but otherwise the day started nice. I decided I would walk around the neighborhood a bit, to see if I could see any cherry trees blooming along the Sumida River, which is about a quarter-mile from my apartment. I made my way down to the riverbank, which has a park and walkway all along the river on both sides, and started north.

After walking for a while, I found that I was very close to one of the city’s parks, Kiyosumi Gardens. I decided to go ahead and check out the park, which is a nice, well laid-out Japanese garden, with hundreds of interesting rocks from all over Japan, and some wildlife in the form of birds and turtles, as well as hungry koi fish in the large pond/small lake. They charge a small admission fee, and I was able to finagle the senior rate, which was 70 yen, or about 45 cents! Who says Japan is expensive! 🙂 Sadly there were no cherry blossoms, but there were some flowering bushes, not sure what kind though.

After strolling through the park for a while, making a full circuit of the paths, I decided to get some lunch, and on my way out the gate I saw a Denny’s down the block! Unfortunately, at 1:30 PM they had a lot of people waiting, especially families, so I changed my plans and started walking down the street. I ended up going into this little ramen shop and having a big bowl with a side of rice and pickled cabbage. The ramen had a piece of pork so well cooked it practically fell apart in my chopsticks, and the noodles were cooked just firm enough, and the broth was really really good and salty.

Sadly, I didn’t take any pictures of the shop or the food, I didn’t ask permission and I didn’t want to be one of “those” tourists and act like I owned the place, so you’ll have to use your imagination. It was a whole universe better than any cup ramen you might have had, though!

From there, my trek took me on a subway ride to Shinjuku to the apartment office to tell them of a maintenance issue I had, and then back to Monzennakacho on a different train line. When I got back to the apartment I checked my health app on my phone and found that I had walked over 5 miles! I hadn’t intended to walk quite that far on my first day, but thankfully I have been working up to it over the past year or so.

Anyway, that’s all for Wednesday! I took Thursday off so I could get these pictures ready!

Science fiction boat in Tokyo!

One of the neat things in Tokyo is a tour boat company that runs different types of tour boats up and down the Sumida River, in the heart of Tokyo. Three of the boats were designed by famous Japanese science fiction creator Leiji Matsumoto, and the boats are designed to resemble space ships. The interior of the boats are very 70’s sci-fi, and have retro-style tables and sofas. I happened to catch one while I was walking on the walkway along the Sumida.