[ Jan.2018 ] We had an excursion to Enoshima island in Kanagawa prefecture in Japan early in the new year.
A friend of us who lives around here took us around.
We took Enoden (Enoshima Electric Railway) from Fujisawa.
I always have a nostalgic feeling about this railway, though this time the train itself was not so cute as before.
When we got off, the atmosphere was already the one of the tourist sites.
We walked to the seaside and cross the bridge to the Enoshima island.
The weather was wonderful and we could see the beautiful view of Mt.Fuji from the bridge.
There were many kites flying around.
Our friend said “In the past, there used to be only beach huts around here, but now they call here ‘Miami Beach in Japan'”.
According to her, in the past, depending on the tide, sometimes people could walk to the Enoshima island and sometimes could not, “like Mont Saint-Michel in France in the past”.
There is a church on Mont Saint-Michel while on Enoshima, there is a shrine.
Enoshima Shrine is one of the three great shrines of Benzaiten.
Benzaiten (or Benten-sama) is a goddess and our friend said “Benten-sama is famous for being jealous, so you had better not pray as a couple”.
On the day, there were so many people on the approach to the 
shrine because it was the time for New Year’s first visit (a tradition in Japan).
So we avoided the shrine and headed for a restaurant called “Uohana” which our friend had picked on the internet.
Even here, there were many people and we had to wait for a while, but in the end we had a tasty bowl of rice topped with fresh seafood.
This area, Shonan coast where Enoshima and Kamakura meet are famous for whitebait.
I heard that from January to March, they must not fish them, but in the bowl, some row whitebait was included.
I prefer the boiled ones, though.
After this good lunch, we walked up to the highest point of the island and entered Samuel Cocking Garden there.
Samuel Cocking was an Irish merchant who built a large botanical garden here in the late 19th century.
In his botanical garden there used to be a biggest green house in the east, but because of the huge earthquake in 1923, most things were destroyed.
There were some ruins in the current garden.
We went up to the observation lighthouse called Sea Candle.
We could see Boso Peninsula in Chiba prefecture as well as Oshima and Nii-jima islands in the ocean in the distance from there, which was very nice.
Most of the people seemed to be waiting to see the sunset on top of the Sea Candle, but we started coming down the staircase and when we arrived at the bottom, the sun set without becoming red and kept its yellow glow.
We started on our way back from there and on the way, we could see the silhouette of Mt. Fuji which was a heavenly view.
