Enoshima

I have been wanting to go Enoshima for a little while now, and today was the perfect day for it.  I got up early to head out, and took the train to Ofuna, and then the Shonan monorail to Shonan-Enoshima station.  It was a suspended monorail, it felt very strange, but it was a nice ride up in the sky!

 From the monorail, I was able to snap a slightly blurry picture of work - the Shonan Research Center.  It is the five big white buildings in the distance.  It is huge!  It takes forever to walk from one end to the other!

There is a long bridge to cross to get to the island - it wasn't so crowded early in the morning!



 Heading up the stairs to see the shrines.  I bought an eno-pass for the day, which let me see the lighthouse, the caves, and allowed use of the escalators.  I was in the mood to climb things though, so I just used the stairs!

Here is one of the shrines.  They were very intricate!

 Behind one of the shrines was this pretty little area.  There were scoops to drink from the dragon fountain - I'm not sure what that was supposed to do for you!

I found this funny - a french toast cafe.  It looked tasty, but I wasn't hungry yet!



Here is the lighthouse on the top of the island.  It is called the Sea Candle.  I did not walk up all of those stairs!  It had two observation decks, one inside, and then another up one flight that was open to the air.



 The next few pictures are the views from the top.  You can see the beaches on the mainland, and some mountains in the distance.  It was too hazy today to see Mt Fuji :(

 Here are the cliffs on the back of the island - there are some caves in them that you could go inside!

 This guy looks pretty mad.

 On my way to the caves, I saw a lot of people fishing.  I have a feeling they were supplying most of the island restaurants!  Also, there were a lot of little kids playing in the tide pools - you could buy a net and a bucket to catch things with.

 There were two caves - in cave number one, I saw some plant life managing to grow!

On the way to cave #2 I saw this turtle stone.

 Cave 2 ended with this super creepy dragon.  I didn't stay long here!

 There were dozens of the hawk-like birds flying around.  I have never seen so many in one place before!

I was hoping that I could translate the type of bird that they were from this tile in the walkway, but I think it just says "flying".

 After the caves I ate lunch at a restaurant overlooking the water.  I don't think it gets much better than this!

Lunchtime!  I had tamago-don (rice covered with egg and onion), miso soup, what I think is some pickled radish, and an Enoshima local beer.  (Very important tip - beer is pronounced bee-ru!)

After lunch I went to this spa (the tan building on the edge of the island).  The beer helped me have some courage to try my first onsen, a Japanese public bath (this one, like most, was segregated by gender, thank goodness!).  The onsen was very nice, but super hot.  I could only stay in about 20 minutes, and when I got out my face was very red!  After the onsen, I visited some of the swimming pools, one of which was outside and looked out over the sea.  Luckily the water was quite warm, because the air was very chilly.  So chilly in fact, that I went back in to the onsen after to warm up!  It was such a relaxing way to spend part of my afternoon.  I have a feeling a lot more onsen trips will be on my agenda for the rest of my time here!

 After the onsen I was ready to do some shopping!  I bought quite a few presents, but everyone will be relieved that I didn't buy them a cuttlefish.  :)

 I am so glad I made it to Enoshima early, because this is how crowded it was when I left!  You could barely move down the shopping street!

So far, this has been my favorite place in Japan.  I wonder what could beat it?!?