Shonan on Nanikore

TELL 21,081 Steps

Mon, 11 Oct 2021 13:03:00 +0000

COVID has meant that a lot of charity and awareness events have had to be cancelled, or reformatted - as our own Tokyo Toy Run got reworked, but it still got done which was great. TELL is an organization in Japan which provides support and counseling to those international residents with mental health needs. They run regular events to raise funds and awareness, and this year they’re running a more COVID do-able walking challenge - do 21,081 steps in a day.

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Those steps can be done solo (as I did) or as part of a team, as long as it’s on the same day. The number is to recognise the 21,081 people who took their own lives in Japan in the last year. It doesn’t seem like a lot to ask.

It’s easy to sign up, a small fee of 1,500yen, and you’ll receive a very comfortable TELL Step Up face mask.

I decided I’d do mine as a walk around the beach area of Shonan, so I planned a route from Fujisawa station, down to the beach and then to Enoshima and back, then up the coast and loop back through Tsujido to Fujisawa station.

Usually I’m on two wheels when I’m passing through, so it was actually good to be doing it on foot for for a change since it’s a different way of seeing a place, and also brought along our old point n click camera to see if I could get a few photos along the way. I should mention that the forecast was cool and overcast, but on the day it was around 30degreesC and bright blue skies.

From Fujisawa station, I went to the Sakai River and followed it to where it comes out at the Enoshima bridge road and the ocean. That’s a nice walkway next to the river, quite a few bridges if those are your thing, and quite a few people practicing canoeing down to the ocean and back on the river.

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If you’re passing at the right time you can also see the old school Enoden tram going over the river on its dedicated bridge.

At the end of the river is the Katase-Eno shima Odakyu station, which, if you haven’t seen it is quite striking in its own way, looking almost Chinese in it’s colourful design.

On this particular day, it was getting up to the mid 30s C, so I was ready for a nice cold dink and a sit down. Unfortunately for me, I was too early for many of the cafes around the station, but I did find one place, over the Benten bridge and just behind the Police box with a friendly looking egg man outside, called the Shio Cafe, so I popped inside and had some iced fresh orange juice.

After that stop it was time for the middle third, which was a walk over to the foot over Enoshima and back, which was the only time I walked the same piece of pavement twice, but it is nice to walk out and look back towards the coast of the mainland and get that different view of Mt. Fuji.

Then it was a walk up the beach track. I did most of this in my running shoes, but I’ll admit I’m a bit of a barefoot fan, so I probably did a few thousand steps on that sandy asphalt track carrying my shoes and socks and it felt good. (Walking down coasts always makes me think of The Man Up the Pole.)

My next turn was through an underpass into the Kaihin Koen and my second and final break - a great cream at the park’s Smile Cafe. It’s a nice little place, and it reminded me that in non Corona times, the park plays host to a very decent matsuri in the Summer if you’re ever around.

Sadly in some ways the rest of the walk was to be urban - a straight walk up to Tsujido station, but a reminder of all the cool little restaurants and cafes which are still going through all this COVID impact, all the traffic cramming down the roads and all the people still bustling around despite the lack of pavements, and narrow pedestrian walkways. It does make you feel good to know that it’s all still out there.

At Tsujido station, I crossed from the ‘south’ to the ’north’, that is, crossing the Tokaido-sen railway lines, which locals treat as something of a dividing line at times. On the north side of the station is the sprawling new Terrace Mall, which forms the heart of a fairly large group of retail buildings with everything from expensive bag shops to wall climbing clubs and rooftop spas commanding envious views of Mt. Fuji from an onsen.

Sadly none of this was for me yet. I still had a few thousand steps to go, fortunately in a straight line, down the path alongside the tracks,

It’s not a bad walk either, some cafes, some shops, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu club and some konbini’s and then with yet another shopping centre - Fill. It was still hot though.

And there it was, all the steps done. It felt good, though I was still another thousand away from the station and a bowl of gyudon at Yoshinoya.

This was a nice pleasant walk for me - my legs may have disagreed at points - but it was no hardship, and given what it supports, publicizes and provides funds for, it seems like something more can do. Certainly I’ll be up for it next year - or whatever even they come up with!

Last Fireworks of the 'Summer'

Wed, 02 Nov 2016 17:56:45 +0000

A few weeks ago we were down at the beach near Enoshima, where it was the closing hanabi of the Summer festival season - yes, in October. I think it’s one of the last formal fireworks events in Shonan for the year, and it attracted several thousand people, on the beach and the strip of grass and parks between the beach and the main coastal road.

The whole thing went for just under an hour, a little longer than normal, but not as long as some of the big ones around Japan. The atmosphere was great though; there’s just something relaxing about being down by the beach, sitting around and watching fireworks - and quite a few people were finishing off BBQs.

When the fireworks finished, in an impressive finale, there was a generous round of applause. It was also good that had quite a few designs I hadn’t seen before, and there were fewer ‘character’ based ones like Doraemon, which I find a little cheap.

I should say, I’m awful at taking pictures of fireworks, mainly because I’m, you know, busy watching them instead of getting the camera right. Instead of a shakey and blurry picture of fireworks then, I thought I’d put in an equally generic photo of sunset around Fuji from Enoshima I took as we were waiting, and a short video as I was testing out my new GoPro.

To give a rough idea, here’s a 60 second video of the finale, though if you look around the net, there are much better examples!

New Header Image: Sunset

Sun, 05 Jan 2014 12:11:48 +0000

It’s been a long time since I changed that header image, and since the last one was from a cooling stream, I thought I’d replace it with a sunset, which looks nice and warm, even though I took the picture in late 2013 and it was definitely not warm. The same time I took these pictures I think.

There’s something very calming about sunsets all over the world, over forests, cities, the ocean, wherever. I’m frequently reminded about something the amazing Douglas Adams wrote for the ‘final’ Hitchhiker’s series - Quintessential Phase about boundary conditions, (I’ll dig the quote out for the next post) and a sunset where the ocean meets land seems to be two simultaneous boundaries.

Shonan Beach in July

Sun, 21 Jul 2013 15:04:50 +0000

Every now and then I’m around the Shonan area of Kanagawa, so in the Summer we may go to the beach, which is what the area is really famous for. After a day hanging around, getting into the ocean and walking around the beach you can also try oput some of the very relaxed cafes, bars and restaurants.

You can also get some really nice sunset shots if that’s your thing, and photos of all those people as they venture home.

Of course, if you’re in the water, take a waterproof camera (in my case an old GoPro HD Hero2). On this day in July, it wasn’t so busy, as the beach hut bars are often fairly crowded, so if you wanted to, you could get a beer and sit down for a bit.

湘南ベルマレ　１−１　東京ヴェルディ

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 12:43:40 +0000

Last night we went down to the BMW Stadium in Hiratsuka for a family night out to see a live football game between the local team - Shonan Bellmare - and visitors Tokyo Verdy. It was a very decent night out all told - the stadium is in a nice park and there was a lot of stalls almost like a mini-matsuri outside, selling shaved ice with fruit syrup, beer and a decent array of snack foods. The stadium is a nice, if somewhat Soviet-era looking concrete construction which apparently can hold around 18,000, but it felt plenty full with last night’s attendance of 9,370.

Shonan play in J2, the lower of the two Japanese professional leagues, but that’s OK - my local team in the UK isn’t exactly top flight, but that doesn’t stop an entertaining game, and the crowd were treated to some good football for 90minutes, and even two well taken goals in the second half giving the final scoreline of 1-1. Points have to go to the Verdy fans who put up a solid 90minutes of drums and chanting, and at least from where we were sat, drowned out the locals.

It’s been a while sine I’ve been to a J League game actually, though I always watch games when I go back to the UK, and whilst the support style might change around the world, the community feeling on the terraces and the appreciation of the play seems fairly constant. I have to say though, watching an evening game 3Km from the Pacific Ocean in a t-shirt and shorts contrasts oddly to Boxing Day games in the north of England.

Bottom line: if you’re in Japan, and you haven’t checked one out, go and see a J League game, and if you’re visiting, put it on your to do list.

I didn’t take many photos as I was assisting in keeping the kids under control as it was their first ever live football game, and whilst my eldest said she liked it, she was tired after 75mins., and my youngest spent some time with one of us walking about as he was fascinated by the stadium and all the people.

A few photos from April 2012

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:31:44 +0000

I’ve been a bit busy of late and so haven’t written any posts, and I think that’s going to be the situation for a while yet due to now being in the middle of a few things. However, I thought I’d update with a few photos from April 2012.

Three Local Beers

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 15:36:33 +0000

Just a short post. Over the last few years, perhaps due to family and tastes, I just seem to have gotten out of drinking beer very often, or at least the lager derived beer which constitutes such a large percentage of the market here. I should say though that whilst wine now represents the small amount of alcohol beverages I do drink, I have been trying some local micro-brewery beers to see what the local brewers are offering.

The three I tried this month were from two breweries - “Shonan Bitter” from the Kumazawa Brewery and “Kamakura Prime” and " Enoshima Beer" from the Kamakura Beer Company.

Overall they were all palatable ales. I’m not sure I’d want to drink too many of any of them on a given night, but if you’re having a bit of a house party they’d go down pretty well. They’re a little bit pricey - even in supermarkets - going for 400-500yen a bottle, compared to the 200-300yen for a can of lager. That said, you’ll enjoy one of these more than two cans of Asahi Super Dry.

Despite the names, by European standards, they’re perhaps not deep, rich tasting beers but again, very decent, and fit the region they come from - Shonan is famed for it’s beaches and layed back attitude - to being almost horizontal at times, and drinking these I don’t think of oak beamed pubs but of open fronted cafes selling yakitori with surf boards propped up.

Looking around, the area seems well served with local brews apparently grown from local hops too, so as I try a few more I’ll perhaps post on them, and actually make some more notes on the taste comparison front. I wouldn’t mind getting on the bike and visiting a hop farm too.