A Day at Shirahama Beach in Shimoda
Saturday, August 24, 2013
After spending Friday and Saturday in Iwata and Hamamatsu, we headed back out for more traveling. On Saturday we went to Shimoda which is in the southeastern part of the Izu peninsula. I used to live in Izu, but I only visited Shimoda once because even though it wasn't far, there wasn't very direct transportation there because of the mountains. I either had to take an indirect bus route that didn't run very often or take a bus east, a train north, and then a train back south. It just wasn't convenient at all from Toi.
First we arrived in Atami a little before noon. We dropped our luggage off at the hotel and headed back towards the station to find somewhere to eat. We decided to just eat at McDonald's because we didn't want to waste time finding another place and well, it just sounded good!
There was a store near McDonald's with some really cute stuff in the window! I stepped in there after lunch but we were in a bit of a hurry for the train so I didn't have time to buy any of these adorable kitties.
At McDonald's I had a chicken salsa sandwich and a blueberry soda. Mmm!
Then we went to the station and I saw this train and was kind of jealous of the cool seating. Then I realized that it was our train!
Many of the seats sat facing the windows so that the passengers could enjoy the view. We were standing for a little while, but we were eventually able to get a seat. The train got emptier and emptier as we neared Shimoda.
The view from the train is really nice in some areas as it goes along the coast. Here's a video that also has some stuff from the beach later in the day.
The train had some historical stuff above the windows which I couldn't read and probably wouldn't have read even it had been in English. Shimoda is famous for Perry's black ships landing there. I don't know many details though.
There are several stores near the station selling souvenirs and useful stuff for the beach. Jonathan and I bought a mat and an inner tube. He also bought some flip flops because he had forgotten the ones he had bought just for Shimoda.
We took a bus to Shirahama beach. We found pay showers but couldn't find just a bathroom where we could change clothes (later I found a restroom on the beach that we could have used). So we changed in the bathroom at 7-11 even though I'm pretty sure the sign said not to do that there.
The beach was pretty crowded, but there were still plenty of spots for us to sit. The water wasn't as crowded and I liked that there were people there because it was lively.
It was such a pretty area!
It was fun to play with the inner tube. I mostly liked floating around and going out where the waves just gently went up and down, but Jonathan enjoyed going near the shore and riding the waves.
While Jonathan played in the water some more I walked to the other end of the beach and took some pictures.
By the time I got back to our spot most people had left (except for people cleaning up the beach and people who worked at the umbrella rental shops). We dried off a little bit, though we didn't dry off much because it's always so humid here. I eventually just had to put my clothes back over my wet bathing suit even though it made my shorts wet and it looked bad, haha.
While waiting for the bus we took a picture of the interesting non-colorful 7-Eleven. I saw another 7-Eleven like this in Dogashima. I wonder why some of them are this color. This 7-Eleven was very interesting because a lot of people just went in there in their bathing suits and there was sand all over the floor.
We were super hungry once we made it back to Atami so we got food from a konbini for dinner. I got chicken and rice and chocolate milk. I get that chicken a lot from Family Mart.
Originally I had planned for us to spend five days in Tokyo, but Jonathan wanted to go to Shimoda so we changed to just spend four days in Tokyo. I had a fun day at the beach so it was a good choice!