Taura

Having not much time to visit things this last week-end, I decided to go on a small walk I had found near Taura station, or at least near one of the Taura stations.

It was a short walk, but very pleasant, in the sun, on a nice and toasty warm day. The walk starts from ths station and you have to go through 2 tunnels, to get to a small valley, and then the road winds up the valley for a short way (at one point the road actually makes a corkscrew and passed over itself) until you get to a nice bamboo forest.

There is never only bamboo in the forest though, and the deciduous trees were inhabitted by the grey squirrels they have here. I spent 5 enjoyable minutes watching this pair run around and mumble to itself. They are the cutest things that can be when they're quiet, but they also have a tendancy to scream loudly every time anything upsets them, which can quickly become irritating if there are more than 3 or 4 squirrels.

At the top of the forest is a small park set up with some small garden patches, a children's playground and a look-out tower. From there you can see the coast from Tokyo (a smear on the horizon), Yokohama (the tall buildings of Minato 21 are quite recognisable), the industrial zone with JAMSTEC, and finally Yokosuka with it's war ships, and the city itself which kind of extends off down the coast.

With the start of Golden Week, and a bit less work to do, I hope to go to Tokyo and see some neat stuff there.