A Shonan Beach Walk

It’s been a while since my last post, but I’m here with a big one.  Lots of photos for you to enjoy.

My family went to Kamakura today for lunch and a long walk.  We started off at Kamakura station and walked down to Kua’Aina, a Hawaiian hamburger restaurant that we really love to eat at.  I had a bacon mozzarella burger.

 

After lunch, we went down to the beach and enjoyed the view.  It was 15 degrees and sunny, and there were several surfers out.

The kites were out, as well.  They’re always around the beach looking for food.  They do a lot of hunting, but also tend to go after food that people have.  I took a video of the kites.

And here’s my daughter enjoying the beach.

After passing Inamuragasaki (the above picture), we could see Enoshima.  However, right below this picture, something interesting was happening.  In fact, a woman asked me not to take pictures.  But…

…after walking a while, I turned around, zoomed in, and took a picture.  They were filming a TV drama.  In Kamakura, there are a lot of TV shows shot.  Not just dramas, but also variety shows, food shows, and more.  There are also a lot of rich and famous people living in the city.

The famous Enoden train goes along the coast in southwestern Kamakura.  We saw a couple trains go by.

We entered Fujisawa, near Enoshima, and I saw an orange Lamborghini, though I’m not sure which model.  However, it appeared to be quite recent.

This is the last photo I took on our walk.  However, it wasn’t the end.  This was taken around Enoshima, and I zoomed in on the small sailboats.  Not so clear in this photo, though.  We continued walking until Tsujido Station in Fujisawa.  It was a total of 13.68 km. Not bad.  That’s our usual walk.

Southern Beach in Chigasaki

Who likes the beach?  Well, for my 500th blog post, let’s celebrate with a visit to Chigasaki’s very famous and popular beach, Southern Beach!

This beach is famous for the Southern All Stars, Keisuke Kuwata’s very popular band. I didn’t go there for the music, though.  My family decided to visit the beach on Friday to give our daughter her first experience of feeling the sand beneath her feet and getting her feet wet in the ocean.  It was a great idea, but it didn’t go according to plan.  Simply put, she slept the entire time.

After arriving at the shore, we had to walk a bit along the coast to get to the beach.  I’d been down this way before 2 years ago on one of my long walks, which I have plenty of photos of, but haven’t posted yet.

Ominous-looking clouds to the west. We’re walking toward Southern Beach.

The weather didn’t look very promising.  The forecast called for cloudy skies all afternoon.  When we arrived at the beach, we noticed it wasn’t very busy.  It was the last day before summer holidays, so that wasn’t surprising. It would be packed as soon as the summer holidays start (that was today, July 20th). There were some families, though.  I saw plenty of children, as well as groups of adults enjoying the beach, sunbathing, and swimming.  Some were also bodyboarding.  Looked like fun!

My daughter sleeping at the beach. In the distance, you can see Enoshima.

Those clouds sure look dark. But we didn’t have to worry. As you can see, it wasn’t crowded.

There were a few beach houses set up on the beach, selling food, drinks, shaved ice, and access to showers and rental beach equipment.

So, those clouds didn’t bother us at all.  In fact, it became very sunny!  Thanks to the bright sun, the sand got very hot.  I decided to go down to the water and feel the cool, wet sand beneath my feet.  It felt great!  I waded a little into the water, then a big wave came up and got the bottom of my shorts wet.  I wasn’t wearing a swimsuit, so I couldn’t go swimming.  Next time, we really should take swimsuits!  The water wasn’t cold, but it was comfortably cool with the hot sun.

A wave is coming in.

We didn’t stay long.  Only 30 minutes.  It was nice to visit, but since we didn’t have anything with us to enjoy the beach, we decided to go home.  Besides, my daughter was still sleeping.  So, until next time, beach.

Ishidaya, one of the beach houses. This is the back side. It has food, drinks, shaved ice, rentals, and showers. The staff seemed pretty friendly.

Southern Beach’s famous C.

The beach at Tsujido

It’s been a long time since I posted about Tsujido Seaside Park, but this is part 2! It was October 19th of last year, and we’d just left the park to walk along the beach.  So, we followed a path along a river.  I’ll just let the pictures speak for themselves, as there’s not much to explain.  So, enjoy!

Graffiti under the bridge.

It was a sunny day, so great reflection off of Sagami Bay. You can see the Izu Peninsula in the distance.

There were some incredible waves at the beach that day.

There’s Enoshima in the distance.

These fences are wind barriers to keep the sand from drifting. My wife is the small figure on the beach.

A kite posing for me with some great waves in the background.

Another picture of the kite looking away.

Getting closer to Enoshima with some nice waves and clouds.

Same location, but more waves.

Near the mouth of the Hikiji River, I got some great reflection pictures. This is the first.

I caught some rays through the clouds.

More rays with the Izu Peninsula in the distance.

Some great waves. They were pretty big that day.

I think this was the best picture of this set. An amazing spotlight on the bay.

And that’s it for the beach.  I think the last photo was the best.  What do you think?

2012 Picture of the Week (26/52) – Early summer beach

This picture marks the halfway point in the year. And that means it’s early summer! We went down to the beach from Tsujido in Fujisawa, as it was a beautiful day. Since it’s still rainy season, the beach had very few people. Only surfers, bodyboarders, and joggers were around. Of course, some people just went to see the beach. There are no swimmers yet, as the lifeguards aren’t working and the beach houses aren’t finished. But in a couple of weeks, the beaches all along Bay will be packed for kilometers. In this picture, you can see a couple of kids enjoying the beach.

Great day at the beach!

Hawk attack at Yuigahama Beach!

On Sunday, I was at a beach barbecue at Yuigahama Beach in Kamakura, and we had some visitors.  All along the beach, there are signs warning of hawks, as they like to attack unsuspecting people who are carrying food.  I saw several people get attacked, losing their food in the process.  One happened to be my friend, and he lost his corn.  They can be quite aggressive, and they were present in large numbers.  It was hard to get some good quality photos of the hawks, but I tried my best.  Below is what I was able to capture.

A single hawk flying above.

Another hawk, a little closer.

Those are all hawks. There were plenty of crows around, but they didn't get mixed up with the much bigger hawks.

See the hawk in the middle? It didn't hit anyone, but it was probably going after someone's food.

They were everywhere!

The kites were also out. The plastic type, not the bird.

Sunset at Shonan Beach

Last Friday, we walked down to the beach along the Hikiji River in Fujisawa.  We arrived at the beach near sunset, so we were treated to a wonderful display of the sun setting behind Mt Fuji.  Enjoy the pictures!

This was taken from a pedestrian bridge. Mt Fuji was visible, but due to the brightness of the sun, it overwhelmed my iPhone camera.

Looking a little farther north, you can see the Tanzawa Mountains and the Hikiji River.

Looking southeast, Enoshima was visible.

After crossing the pedestrian bridge, we looked west toward Mt Fuji. Again, you can't see it in this photo.

Mt Fuji is beginning to become visible.

Looking over to Enoshima, there are a lot of surfers in the water.

From the beach, I took this great shot of Enoshima.

The sun is beginning to go behind Mt Fuji in this shot.

I love the colours in this photo.

Zooming in on Mt Fuji a bit. Great shot.

Nice colours in this one. The sun has now gone behind Mt Fuji.

One final look at Mt Fuji, now that the sun has gone completely behind it.

We were quite fortunate that we arrived at the beach at this time, and that the clouds weren’t obstructing our view.  It was amazing to see!