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[Photopost] Monoraaaaaaaaail! Enoshimaaaaa!
Today, because it was only a few degrees above freezing, I did what any sane person would do -- I went to the beach.
I didn't actually step into the water, though, which is a shame; then I could claim I had been in the Pacific Ocean on both sides. Alas. I guess that gives me a reason to go back this summer.
Today, my goal was to actually ride the Shonan Monorail, which is a suspended monorail. It goes for about 2 miles from Ofuna to Enoshima, and is made of pure awesome (it's really, REALLY neat to be essentially flying over roads and fields and through trees, up hills, etc) and completely impossible to photograph (I guess I could have gotten out of the monorail halfway through the ride and tried to take a picture as the next one came into the station, but people were already looking at me weird enough, plus did I mention it was COLD out?)
So, first I went to Ofuna, which is already some 40 miles from where I live, and took an hour and a half to get to. Then from Ofuna I got on the monorail, and in Enoshima I basically walked to the viewpoint cliff on the other end of the island, climbing up the shrine and going through the other paths. Came down, took the Enoden train to Fujisawa (it's so cute! I'm still in love), and then took JR trains to get home, stopping in Yokohama on the way. (I visited two baseball card shops, one in Fujisawa and one in Yokohama, see.)
This kind of begs a map, so here's a map:
Okay, let me explain. The stuff in orange is where I went two weeks ago with Carl and Oren; we had wandered around Kamakura and then took the Enoden two stops to Hase to go see the Daibutsu.
The stuff in Red is the first part of today -- Ofuna to Shonan Enoshima via the monorail. The blue part is my walking all the way to the end of the island. Then the green part is the last transit part, the Enoden line from Enoden Enoshima to Enoden Fujisawa. I then had to walk to the JR Fujisawa station... and conveniently the Mint card store was in a mall between the two.
Best part is getting on the train in Fujisawa and they say, "Next stop is Ofuna."
Speaking of Ofuna, there is an AWESOME import foods store in the station, but I didn't want to get anything because I'd have to lug it around all day. They had root beer, and honey roasted peanuts, and all sorts of things I forgot about. I did end up getting a cream-cheese-and-lox bagel from a "New York Bagel" place near it and it was actually REALLY GOOD, so go figure.
So, first thing I did was ride the monorail.
Entrance to the Shonan Monorail station in Ofuna.
The actual terminus of the line.
The monorail is really neat. It has no tracks below it, just above it.
The government of Fujisawa city -- where Enoshima technically is -- would like you to be careful of tsunami. Please if there is an earthquake, make sure you move to higher places and take refug. (Teehee.)
Also, they want you to be very careful in case you see Munenori Kawasaki or Nagisa Arakaki or Kazumi Saitoh or Hiroki Kokubo wandering around. Hawks are very dangerous.
The bridge seems a lot longer than it actually is. The island seems a lot SMALLER than it actually is.
Once you climb up a ton of stairs on the island you are rewarded by seeing a big shrine and lots of hatsumode.
Wait, make that two shrines.
There was also a really really neat view of the north end of the island and the road/bridge leading there. You can see the temple complex, the beach, and the city in the background.
I also saw a dog. I was pretty surprised to see a dalmatian way the hell up on top of a temple island, seriously.
I forgot to mention this, but at the very start I could have paid something like 700 yen to get a ticket to all of the escalators on the island. Instead, I climbed up a whole fuckload of stairs, and gave up at the point where it cost 180 yen to take the last two escalators instead. You have to admit, building escalators on a mountainside tourist attraction and charging admission to use them is an absolutely BRILLIANT moneymaking scheme.
You get to the top of the island, up to the view point, and then you see that there's actually a lighthouse in the distance. But, by that point it was around 4pm so I figured there was no point in first finding the lighthouse and then climbing it because it'd be getting pretty dark by the time I got there.
So, this couple was standing there looking like "We want to ask the American to take our picture but we don't speak English," so I offered to them in Japanese to take their picture. They were very happy about that and offered to take mine. Sadly I don't think they really knew how to use my big camera, but at least I have proof I was up there.
(and, for Carl's reference, you can see the orange arrow I bought -- I had the choice between Blue for Victory, Yellow for Money, Green for Peace, or Orange for Happiness, so it seemed obvious to me which one to get)
When I went down the mountain, I decided to try a satsuimo (purple sweet potato) croquette from one of the shops. The guy told me "You should eat these indoors because otherwise the crazy hawks will try to steal it from you." Understandably confused, I said, "What?" He repeated in Japanese, "Biiiig birds," flapped his arms like wings, then said "They eat croquettes." I was like "Ohhh! Uhh... can I just eat in here then?" He said it was ok, so I did. And it was YUMMY AS ALL HELL.
Then I walked really far to the train. Conveniently, the Enoden station is a block from the Monorail station. Apparently the Katase-Enoshima JR station isn't too far either, but why take normal trains when you can take CUTE LITTLE OLDFASHIONED GREEN TRAINS?
Cute little Enoden train in Fujisawa station. Awwww!
Coincidentally, after I took that last picture and was feeling like a big train dork, I saw a Japanese guy standing behind me ALSO holding a huge camera and taking a picture of the train. I felt like less of a dork, but the weird thing is that we kept sort of following each other around for about 5 mins after that -- I went and bought a keychain and he was in the same store, and then when I went to find the JR station, he was standing at the area map also looking for stuff. Alas, I think we were both too shy to talk to each other, but as I was vaguely wondering if he was a big fucking train geek, I bet he was wondering the same thing about me. Hmm.
Anyway, I looked around the baseball card shop in Fujisawa and then went to Yokohama and looked there too. Seems like there actually is no such thing as an actual Yokohama Taiyo Whales Tadanori Ishii pitcher baseball card, as they didn't make one for him until 1993 when he was already converted to a shortstop and named Takuro and the team was called the Baystars. I ask, how the hell does a guy play for four years without someone making a card for him? Sheesh. The good part is that asking in Yokohama resulted in people knowing EXACTLY who and what I was talking about. I didn't even buy any cards there. Go me.
I came home and wanted sushi for dinner but Kura was way too fucking crowded, so I rode my bike up to Subway and got a sandwich and came back and watched TV. I saw the first episode of Katori Shingo's new dorama, "Bara no nai Hanaya" or whatever. It looks as completely slow and boring as I expected, though I'll probly watch it off and on if I'm home at the right times. The good part was having Takeuchi Yuko (and Matsuda Shota) as guests on the LIVE version of the SMAPxSMAP show right after that. Yuko played the Lunch Queen 6 years ago, and it was really funny how when she'd try the food in the Bistro SMAP part of the show, she'd get the same exact look on her face that her character always had in Lunch Queen meaning "Mmmm! This omurice makes me SO HAPPY!" It was cute and funny.
It's STILL fucking cold out.
I didn't actually step into the water, though, which is a shame; then I could claim I had been in the Pacific Ocean on both sides. Alas. I guess that gives me a reason to go back this summer.
Today, my goal was to actually ride the Shonan Monorail, which is a suspended monorail. It goes for about 2 miles from Ofuna to Enoshima, and is made of pure awesome (it's really, REALLY neat to be essentially flying over roads and fields and through trees, up hills, etc) and completely impossible to photograph (I guess I could have gotten out of the monorail halfway through the ride and tried to take a picture as the next one came into the station, but people were already looking at me weird enough, plus did I mention it was COLD out?)
So, first I went to Ofuna, which is already some 40 miles from where I live, and took an hour and a half to get to. Then from Ofuna I got on the monorail, and in Enoshima I basically walked to the viewpoint cliff on the other end of the island, climbing up the shrine and going through the other paths. Came down, took the Enoden train to Fujisawa (it's so cute! I'm still in love), and then took JR trains to get home, stopping in Yokohama on the way. (I visited two baseball card shops, one in Fujisawa and one in Yokohama, see.)
This kind of begs a map, so here's a map:
Okay, let me explain. The stuff in orange is where I went two weeks ago with Carl and Oren; we had wandered around Kamakura and then took the Enoden two stops to Hase to go see the Daibutsu.
The stuff in Red is the first part of today -- Ofuna to Shonan Enoshima via the monorail. The blue part is my walking all the way to the end of the island. Then the green part is the last transit part, the Enoden line from Enoden Enoshima to Enoden Fujisawa. I then had to walk to the JR Fujisawa station... and conveniently the Mint card store was in a mall between the two.
Best part is getting on the train in Fujisawa and they say, "Next stop is Ofuna."
Speaking of Ofuna, there is an AWESOME import foods store in the station, but I didn't want to get anything because I'd have to lug it around all day. They had root beer, and honey roasted peanuts, and all sorts of things I forgot about. I did end up getting a cream-cheese-and-lox bagel from a "New York Bagel" place near it and it was actually REALLY GOOD, so go figure.
So, first thing I did was ride the monorail.
Entrance to the Shonan Monorail station in Ofuna.
The actual terminus of the line.
The monorail is really neat. It has no tracks below it, just above it.
The government of Fujisawa city -- where Enoshima technically is -- would like you to be careful of tsunami. Please if there is an earthquake, make sure you move to higher places and take refug. (Teehee.)
Also, they want you to be very careful in case you see Munenori Kawasaki or Nagisa Arakaki or Kazumi Saitoh or Hiroki Kokubo wandering around. Hawks are very dangerous.
The bridge seems a lot longer than it actually is. The island seems a lot SMALLER than it actually is.
Once you climb up a ton of stairs on the island you are rewarded by seeing a big shrine and lots of hatsumode.
Wait, make that two shrines.
There was also a really really neat view of the north end of the island and the road/bridge leading there. You can see the temple complex, the beach, and the city in the background.
I also saw a dog. I was pretty surprised to see a dalmatian way the hell up on top of a temple island, seriously.
I forgot to mention this, but at the very start I could have paid something like 700 yen to get a ticket to all of the escalators on the island. Instead, I climbed up a whole fuckload of stairs, and gave up at the point where it cost 180 yen to take the last two escalators instead. You have to admit, building escalators on a mountainside tourist attraction and charging admission to use them is an absolutely BRILLIANT moneymaking scheme.
You get to the top of the island, up to the view point, and then you see that there's actually a lighthouse in the distance. But, by that point it was around 4pm so I figured there was no point in first finding the lighthouse and then climbing it because it'd be getting pretty dark by the time I got there.
So, this couple was standing there looking like "We want to ask the American to take our picture but we don't speak English," so I offered to them in Japanese to take their picture. They were very happy about that and offered to take mine. Sadly I don't think they really knew how to use my big camera, but at least I have proof I was up there.
(and, for Carl's reference, you can see the orange arrow I bought -- I had the choice between Blue for Victory, Yellow for Money, Green for Peace, or Orange for Happiness, so it seemed obvious to me which one to get)
When I went down the mountain, I decided to try a satsuimo (purple sweet potato) croquette from one of the shops. The guy told me "You should eat these indoors because otherwise the crazy hawks will try to steal it from you." Understandably confused, I said, "What?" He repeated in Japanese, "Biiiig birds," flapped his arms like wings, then said "They eat croquettes." I was like "Ohhh! Uhh... can I just eat in here then?" He said it was ok, so I did. And it was YUMMY AS ALL HELL.
Then I walked really far to the train. Conveniently, the Enoden station is a block from the Monorail station. Apparently the Katase-Enoshima JR station isn't too far either, but why take normal trains when you can take CUTE LITTLE OLDFASHIONED GREEN TRAINS?
Cute little Enoden train in Fujisawa station. Awwww!
Coincidentally, after I took that last picture and was feeling like a big train dork, I saw a Japanese guy standing behind me ALSO holding a huge camera and taking a picture of the train. I felt like less of a dork, but the weird thing is that we kept sort of following each other around for about 5 mins after that -- I went and bought a keychain and he was in the same store, and then when I went to find the JR station, he was standing at the area map also looking for stuff. Alas, I think we were both too shy to talk to each other, but as I was vaguely wondering if he was a big fucking train geek, I bet he was wondering the same thing about me. Hmm.
Anyway, I looked around the baseball card shop in Fujisawa and then went to Yokohama and looked there too. Seems like there actually is no such thing as an actual Yokohama Taiyo Whales Tadanori Ishii pitcher baseball card, as they didn't make one for him until 1993 when he was already converted to a shortstop and named Takuro and the team was called the Baystars. I ask, how the hell does a guy play for four years without someone making a card for him? Sheesh. The good part is that asking in Yokohama resulted in people knowing EXACTLY who and what I was talking about. I didn't even buy any cards there. Go me.
I came home and wanted sushi for dinner but Kura was way too fucking crowded, so I rode my bike up to Subway and got a sandwich and came back and watched TV. I saw the first episode of Katori Shingo's new dorama, "Bara no nai Hanaya" or whatever. It looks as completely slow and boring as I expected, though I'll probly watch it off and on if I'm home at the right times. The good part was having Takeuchi Yuko (and Matsuda Shota) as guests on the LIVE version of the SMAPxSMAP show right after that. Yuko played the Lunch Queen 6 years ago, and it was really funny how when she'd try the food in the Bistro SMAP part of the show, she'd get the same exact look on her face that her character always had in Lunch Queen meaning "Mmmm! This omurice makes me SO HAPPY!" It was cute and funny.
It's STILL fucking cold out.