Trip to Enoshima

Felix's rugby doesn't happen on the first Sunday of each month. The coaches get the day off. We deciced to take a day trip to the beach. The beach is about 60 minutes on the train so it pretty easy to reach.

We didn't have any idea what to expect except that we had read that the beach get surf and they are very much into their watersports.

It was great. The beach was really big and sandy. The water was warm (well warmer than Cornwall in the summer) so we all went swimming.

This is also clearly a popular windsurfing beach, with around 100 hundred boards on the beach or out on the water and it wasn't even a windy day. The kits was all the same brands as we would get in the UK, I saw Gaastra, Pryde, Noth, F2 and JP. We found a few shops but the gear was pricey. Now woindering if we can sort roof rack for the car and get gear shipped out. It looks like most people keep their gear in board stores behind the beach and then get the train their when they want to go sailing.

There was the tiniest amount of surf but there must have been 20 people on Malibu boards trying to surf. I think many of them may have come from the nearby surf school.

They were also building a lot ot temporary buildings at the back of the beach which looked like they were bars or restaurants. I think the beach gets really busy in July and August. They have a huge firework display on 1st July to officially open the beach.

After lunch we walked across to Enoshina Island. This was the location for the sailsports during the 1964 Olypics. Not surprisingly it had a great big marina. It also had a whole load of temples all linked by a circular path that ran around the whole island. Along the way there were loats of sounvenir stalls and food stalls. Some of the food being sold was very fishy.

The most bizarre was the suid cooking stalls. They take a fresh quid, place it on a hotplate and then shut the lid. Whilst squeezing the lid down they inject steam. The result is best described as squid crisp. Judging by the queues it's very popular, we couldn't bring ourselves to try it.

The Japanese count things differently depending on the shape of the object. Food is normally considered a normal object so for example one would be hitotsu. Because they make the squid so flat they order it using the counting system for flat things ie ichi mai.

On the far side of the island you could walk down the cliffs onto the foreshore. Here there was a cave made by the action of the sea. We paid to go inside. Right at the back is a series of old temple stones and a dragon. The dragon was apparently eating all the local children until some local lass volunteered to marry the dragon provide he gave up eating children. Apparently he agreed and moved to the cave by the sea where he lived happily with his new wife.