Asakusa Diary - The Staff Blog

Hello together,

today I want to tell you about my one day trip to Enoshima and Kamakura I made a few days ago.

Enoshima (江の島) is a small island, about 4 km in circumference, at the mouth of the Katase River, which flows into Sagami Bay in Japan.

And Kamakura was the political capital of Japan during the Kamakura shogunate, from 1185 to 1333.

Kamakura and Enoshima are very popular for day trips from Tokyo for locals and tourists. ^^

And it's really easy to get there, if you want to have nice change in compare to the big city world around you! ^^

Just go to Shinjuku Station, where the train to Enoshima leaves and where you can buy the Enoshima/Kamakura Freepass ticket. It costs 1430 Yen for an adult and is for both ways and is valid for one day.

It takes around one and a half hour by train then (and you have to change one time in Fujisawa, but no problem, right ^^) - and after that, you'll find yourself in this nice station. ^^

You have to walk some minutes then and there it is.
The sea! ^^
I love the sea!
To go to Enoshima Island, just walk over this huge way and enjoy the atmosphere!

Woah, can you see, what I see! Hello Fuji-san, nice to see you! ^^

It's really so nice there, you can't imagine, you have to experience it yourself!

On Katase Higashihama Beach people you can see people fishing and everything feels really peaceful. :)

When we arrived at Enoshima Island, we directly headed to Enoshima-jinja-Shrine - which was originally a tutelary shrine where the three goddesses of land, sea transport, and fisheries were enshrined.
And many people more had the same idea, too. ^^

Like you see, it's really nice there!

The most I liked in Enoshima was the great view you have almost everywhere.
In this case, pictures can say more than thousand words. :)

If you want to have a better view (is that really possible? ^^), you can visit Enoshima Tenboutoudai, a 60 meter high Observation Tower.

But as we were not good in time (we make so many pictures of the sea and the beautiful nature ^^), we had to go further to Kamakura. ^^

Byebye, Enoshima, until the next time (for sure! ^^).

So we take the train again to Kamakura.
That was really cool, because on this short way, you can see much of the beach and how people enjoy their life there.
I've never seen so many surfer in one time! ^^

In Kamakura, there's really much to see, so you should plan your day good to catch the full package of everything! ^^

We take our way as fast as we could! ^^

But we then reached our first aim - Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine. ^^
This shrine is often referred to as the "Symbol of the ancient capital Kamakura" and was built over 900 years ago!

As you will see, we wasn't fast enough, much more people had been faster! :D
But it was a great atmosphere there!

On the place surrounding the shrine, there were many market stores and we eat some sweet snacks, sitting down near this small lake and watching everything around us. Was so beautiful!

There was this total cute, sassy and brave squirrel you will see in the next picture.
Woah, it was so cute, I wanted to take it with me to the Hostel! :D

But suddenly we realized, that time flews by too fast, so we were in a big hurry to reach our next aim Hokokuji Temple.
Noooo! It was already closed, sniff. So this temple should look like. ^^

I really wanted to see this magical bamboo forest there, but closed, so sad.

Then we thought, that maybe we can see our last aim, the Kotokuin Temple, where the great, huge statue of Buddha should be...but guess...we were too late and it was already dark.

It should look like this.

Because of this, I wrote a few lines ago, that you should plan your day good and watch always at the time (and don't shoot millions of pictures for hours in Enoshima like I did, hihi).

So we went back to the station, enjoying the totally romantic atmosphere. ^^

Even if we couldn't see everything, it was a totally great day!

I'm looking forward to the next time, I'll visit Enoshima and Kamakura.
After that day, I felt totally relaxed and in harmony. :)

And this all is really not far away from Tokyo, so you can give your holidays a special extra touch of Japanese tradition. ^^

I really recommend that as an one day trip, if you're on a visit in Tokyo!