Category Archives: Travel

Japan, Travel

Riding the Enoden pt. 4: Twilight surfing at Shichirigahama

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shichirigahama-001After leaving Hase, I made my way further down the Enoden, bound for Enoshima Island, but along the way this small town caught my eye from the train, and I convinced my buddy John that this stop might be interesting. It turns out that the stop was Shichirigahama, which I had investigated months earlier on Google Maps street view. The real place is much nicer in reality than the pictures showed!

 

 

shichirigahama-039shichirigahama-053Shichirigahama is a small seaside tourist town, which has a lot of surfers, and a very nice beach facing south. Since it was still early November, it wasn’t very cold, so there were still people surfing and enjoying sitting on the beach even at sunset.

 

 

 

shichirigahama-082It’s such a picturesque place I found myself just taking picture after picture (after picture!), of the sun setting over the mountain, of Mount Fuji, of surfers, and just the waves.  Fortunately I’ve spared anyone reading this the boredom of seeing all 250+ pictures of the same thing (although there are still some dupes here!)

Enjoy the “Shichirigahama Surfin’ Safari”!  ^_^

 

Art, Japan, Travel, Uncategorized

Riding the Enoden pt. 2: Kamakura

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enoden1-044So, after riding the Enoden for a few minutes, it was time to get off at the station in Hase town, where the Great Buddha (Daibutsu) of Kamakura is situated. Like most of the towns along the Enoden, Hase is a tourist town, making the most of the local attraction. A lot of tourists come because of the Buddhist aspect, and a lot more come just to gawk (yeah, I’m guilty of the latter.)

kamakura-038Not being Buddhist myself, I didn’t get the spiritual feeling, but as a techie, to me the Great Buddha is an impressive engineering feat! Cast in bronze sometime in the 13th Century, the statue is hollow, allowing people to go inside for a mere 20 yen (about 30 cents US).  The temple grounds around are also very impressive, with sculptures both man-made and natural.

kamakura-046This day was particularly fun, because there was a tour group from an elementary school, and some of the kids were split up into groups, each group assigned to speak to a foreigner in order to practice their English.  The group that approached me and my buddy John did a very good job of introducing themselves, asking if they could ask questions, and handled their English fairly well.  The questions were basic, “Where are you from?” type questions.  It was fun watching them “ambush” other foreigners, too, although I have to wonder if all of the foreign tourists spoke English.  

So, here is the gallery of photos I took in and around Hase and the Great Buddha of Kamakura.

Enjoy!

Japan, Travel

Riding on the Enoden, pt. 1

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enoden1-036Here are some pictures of my day spent riding the Enoden train, a historic train line that runs from Kamakura to Fujisawa, with the main stop in the middle, at Enoshima Island. Enoshima has been a tourist spot since the days of the Shogun, and the Enoden gets its name from “Enoshima Dentetsu“, Enoshima Electric Railway. Kamakura is famous for its large statue of Buddha, which I will post in another set of photos. The train runs along the beach on the Pacific Ocean south of Tokyo, with stops at several beach towns along the way. I stopped at one of these, Shichirigahama, which turned out to have a nice view of Enoshima Island, as well as Mount Fuji (but only in silhouette, as usual…). It very much reminded me of the beach towns of southern California, especially with the surfers, and apparently the Enoshima area is known internationally for its surf. After spending way too much time in Shichirigahama, I continued on to Fujisawa in the evening, but due to failing batteries I didn’t get many photos of the city. This set of pictures is from the first leg of the trip, from Etchujima Station near my apartment in Monzennakacho, through Tokyo Station and on to Kamakura Station, where I picked up the Enoden to Hase. At any rate, here are some more photos from my trip to Japan in 2012. Enjoy!

Japan, Travel

Photos of a rainy Japanese day, 2012

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chiba-039Some of the pictures I took on my last day in Japan, in November 2012. With a few hours to kill before the flight back home, John and I figured we’d take a quick train ride to Chiba from Narita, to see whatever sights could be seen on a cold, rainy day. We did get to ride the Chiba Monorail, and at one end of the line they had the street blocked off for the Chiba Ekiden marathon, which was neat to see. Mostly, though, it was raining too much to get excited about anything, which basically matched my mood about coming back to the U.S.

 

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At any rate, here’s the gallery of photos, enjoy!