It being Golden Week, today Jose, one of Jose's friends named Sebastian (half-swiss half-japanese) and I made a day-trip to Atami. Atami is a beautiful little seaside town on the Izu Peninsula, about 2 hours south of Tokyo. It is famous for its hot springs and its picturesque beach scenery.
So, we left at about 9am, caught the normal express train from Shinjuku to Odawara, which took about 100 minutes or so. Then, we caught the Shinkansen for just ONE stop from Odawara to Atami. You are probably thinking "Why would you take it for just one stop!??". Well, it is a 10 minute ride and costs 1240 yen one way, so it's not ludicrously expensive. A local train would take much longer and Jose and Sebastian had never had the Shinkansen experience...
So we got there and headed for the hot spring. It was great! It was on the roof of a hotel; it had an outdoor pool that was about 58 degrees C, a sauna, a spa, a cold pool, and it all overlooked the ocean, as you will see in the photos I will post below. Very nice atmos, and it was only 1000 yen for all the sauna and spa'ing you could handle.
After that we went into town and found ourselves something to eat. It was ramen, and I was a bit disappointed because I wanted to eat raw fish (Atami being a seaside town after all) but Jose and Sebastian were too concerned about spending heaps of money (admittedly, the restaurants were tourist traps and quite expensive).
Next we caught a bus down to the beach, where we went on the sand (it's really dark here in Japan) and found a beach volleyball court! Next to it, 4 random girls were just chilling out, sort of half-heartedly throwing a volleyball to each other. So I wandered over and asked them if they wanted to play with us on the court. They said yes, and we had a fun time!
After that, we heard some drums and wandered over to the source, only to find ourselves in the middle of some kind of festival, with people dressed up dancing and drumming and what not. Very Japanese!
Finally, we bought some beers, sat out on the sort of jetty-type thing and drank them, and caught the train back. It was such a long day but now my skin feels all nice from the sauna and hot spring, the volleyball was pretty strenous (and my pants are now full of sand), but all round it was a fun fun day. Enjoy the pics!
A statue in Odawara
The hot spring, on the roof of a building overlooking the sea!
The view in one direction...
And in another...
And in another!
The Atami Beach...
The Atami Beach again...
Some traditional Japanese dancers (what's this called, can anyone help me? awa odori or something?)
A big taiko drum
The scene of the festival
A dead shark doing it with a dead manta ray...
