Enoshima

Today was beach-cleaning day!

Ever since my trip to that unpronounceable village in Chiba, I havewanted to participate in a clean-up operation; and drool at the picture of the beach-cleaners on the JAMSTEC bulletin board every day. So it was a great surprise when I peaked at the bulletin board, and the photo had gone! And in its place was a list of dates!

In exchange for some good ctenophore video footage, I got on of the girls at work to translate the thing for me, and settled for Enoshima as it was the easiest to get to.

After a few doutbs earlier this week when the typhoon came through, the "biichi-kliin" day finally dawned, hot and sunny. I had to leave a bit before 8 o'clock, went through Zushi (and noted I will have to go back and investigate those turtles in the strem!), and on to Kamakura.

The end of the Enoden line.

Now the most usual route to Enoshima is, as the bird flies, a detour. So I decided to stop at Kamakura, and jump on the Enoshima Electric Railway, or Enoden. There is a single track most of the way, with a few stations that allow for 2 trains, and a small passing zone at one point. Well, this can happen on any small line. For some obscure reason, however, the Enoden cars look like 1940s trolley cars. It is a bit frightening as the real train looks like someone decided to make a life-sized model of the miniatures they sell at the stations.

The day would have been a success just for that train ride. The picturesque cars and odd bumping screaching breaks, the small gauge winding its way narrowly through the towns, and then out into the open, just a road's width from the sea, with the sound of the waves coming in through the open windows.

I had thought of 2 possible stations for getting off at. The train decided for me, as only one car fits at the first station, and I was in the other car, and did not realize we were at the station, untill we stoped at the same place (me still in the wrong car), on the way back. Give me credit though: from where I was sitting, I was looking straight down on the folks waiting at the level crossing, so did not naturally think that the other end of the train had the doors open and was at quay.

Enoshima island, with an early-bird beach-cleaner.

Getting off at the second station, it was an easy walk to Enoshima aquarium. The stand was easy to find, with it's flag and boxes fo gloves and bags and stuff. It was just past 9, but several people just wandered up, took a bag and pincers and wandered down to the beach. So I did likewise, and set off to find me some trash!

It's amazing how an apparently clean beach can yield so much trash, and how the 30-odd people collecting it all could find something to collect. But as you went along there were always small scraps of plastic, or styrofoam bits.

My bag at around 10am.

I collected mostly small stuff, so my bag wasn't full, but stopped at 11 as I didn't want to burn to a crisp that early in the day. I will be feeling it in my muscles as it is, without being sunburnt to boot.

I had lunch on the rocks at one end of the beach, watching all the folks having fun at the beach.

Then I wandered along to Enoshima island. This is a real island, connected to the mainland at low tide, by a small strip of sand, over which they built a bridge. The island is cut into 3 main parts. The part facing the mainland is all touristic, with a couple big spa hotels and a marina, and loads of shops.

Then you climb up some stairs, and get to a big temple complex, with several temples up and down various staircases.

Enoshima is big on the dragon theme, as, in the mythology, the island appeared out of the sea after several days of earthquakes, and on it was a beautiful maiden. Now there was a dragon just over the next hills who lived in a lake and folks had to sacrifice children to it. He saw the maiden and wanted to marry her, but she refused because he was too evil. So he stopped his wrong-doing, and the peaceful dragon is now a hill.

The faucet in the bathroom...

The third part of the island is very much wild still, with only a few paths through it, and lush vegetation. The part furthest South is nearly separate from the rest of the island, after the ancient collapse of a sea-level cave. There are still 2 large sea-level caves, in which are many small shrines to various gods, and the tomb of the goddess.

The southern shore of the island is composed of many flat tidal pools, connected almost directly to the sheer cliffs of the island, on whish the kites nest. These birds are a danger to outdoor picknicking, but are absolutely amazing to look at.

To finish off my day, I bought myself one octopus, one jellyfish senbei. Senbei are snacks. I am not sure I could qualify them on anything else. They are made by having a very bif waffle iron, but without the waffle pattern. Just 2 big, heated, flat metal plates. Then you take dead octopussies, plunk them in batter, plop them down on the bottom plate, close the top lid and screw shut with all your strength, then wait till cooked. Shat you get is a very flat, hard and crunchy, octopus-flavoured.... snack. Same for jellyfish, although the taste may be more that of the batter than of the jellyfish.

And so with a last breath of cutitudes, headed back to my doll-house train, and home again to collapse into bed. Too much sun and wind just takes it out of one. And my, will I be sore tomorrow!

Hike to Takeyama and Miurafuji

Pouring over the map in search of somewhere to go, I noticed a small dotted line at the southern edge of Miura peninsula, which looked like it could be a hiking trail!

So off I went, and sure enough it was a very nice trail, very well marked, and in beautiful coutryside.

The path starts off from the Keikyu train station, and wanders inland through a big vegetable and fruit region. Huge fields of kabocha (japanese pumpkin), and row after row of greenhouses filled with strawberry and melon plants. And orange and lemon orchards on the sides of the hills.

Also, if you look closer, you can see a quite a novel aproach to your everyday scarecrow....

... the head on a pole style!

The view from the top of the mountains was amazing, even though there was haze that day. You could see the see on 3 sides of the Miura peninsula, and up to Yokohama to the North! You could also look straight across the southern part of Tokyo Bay and see Chiba peninsula nice and clear. From down there, it look very close indeed.

The forest was beautiful, with loads of flowers,

flowering picher plants,

many different caterpillars

and butterflies.

And huge horrible bumble bee-type things, of course. Otherwhise it wouldn't be fun.

I even saw these ... odd... things....

I cannot even begin to guess at what they are. I found them mainly on oak trees, attached, at one end, in the cracks of the bark. They do not not actually appear to be alive.

Are they a worm/caterpillar/animal thing that came out of the tree and died/hatched?

Are they somehow part of the tree, small extentions to catch water?

Your guess is as good as mine....

Tokyo National Museum

For the first day of Golden Week, I kept with my belief that Golden Week is the best time to go to Tokyo, and set off to Ueno.

It is best to go to Tokyo during Golden Week, but not if you want to go to Ueno zoo, where the new Pandas are housed. This is the entrance to the zoo, about 30 minutes after opening time.

Luckily, my plan for the day was to go to the Tokyo National Museum, just a bit further along the park. There was a queue at the entrance, but only of about 30 people, half of which already had tickets and were merely waiting for the gates to open.

The museum is a complex of 5 buildings, 3 of which are closed for renovations. I was a bit upset at that at first, but seeing as I managed to spend almost 6 hours there (from opening time to 20 minutes before closing time), I ended up being quite glad there wasn't more to see!

As opposed to the National History Museum, this one had quite a lot of information in English, and I learned an amazing amount of stuff! The least interesting part for me were the calligraphy rooms, but even there most of the scrolls have intricate drawings as a background to the text.

But from then on, the different exhibitions were absolutely fabulous. There were many rooms of japanese paintings and embroideries, of which I am a big fan. And a special exhibition on lacquerwork, and the influence of sakura in art.

And by far the most interesting for me was the archaeology building. The Japanese prehistoric cultures were amazing, and very different from what you can find in France!

The Jomon culture were Ice-Age folks who appear to be the first to make pottery vessels. [Visual image of an Ice-Age Japanese viking in a clay boat....].

And what makes it even more amazing, is that they were extremely good at making pottery pots, and got a bit over-enthousiastic in later years. What is odd, though, is that after a peak of beautiful pottery in what they call the Middle Jomon, the introduction of metalworking and better farming techniques from the mainland caused the pottery to get more simple again in the Late Jomon period.

Middle-Jomon extravaganza.

Vase from the Yoyoi age, between the late Jomon and Kofun eras.

Another amazing ancient people were the folks during the Kofun period. Folks had gotten things together quite a bit by then, and had different clans fighting each other, and had gotten into making burial mounds for their kings [probably after discovering that clay boats don't float well]. And on these burial mounds, they made huge numbers of clay figurines, of everything from houses to livestock to humans. Little is known about this period for sure, as all that are left are a few legends, so noone really knows what the clay figurines were for.

So that was a good start to Golden Week! Let's see what the other 3 days bring!

Many of these photos are not mine, but they are of objects I saw!