November & December 2013: Izu Peninsula, Christmas Festivities and Kamakura Hiking

 One great part of living in Kanagawa is the warmer winters (compared to Ohio).   Temperatures usually only drop down below freezing a handful of times, and when they do, they don't stay there for too long.  Because I often dread the idea of doing any outdoor activity in Ohio from November through most of March, I feel like I need to take advantage of the warmer winter months while I'm here.  Also, because our summers are longer, the trees don't start to change colors until late October.

We started out November with a trip to the Izu Peninsula, which is about a 2 hour drive southwest of our home in Ebina.  Our first stop was the Jogasaki Coastline.  It is famous for not only the beautiful coast, but also it's picturesque hiking trails and being a get-away resort town (many of the hotels have private onsens).

I don't think of the area I live in as being super warm, but apparently it's warm enough for beautiful palm trees to thrive.  And that makes me happy.

Lots of surfers looking for some good waves.  Most of the buildings in this picture are hotels and/or onsens. 

We started our hike near a lighthouse which had a cool suspension bridge near it.

We hung out on some rocks here for awhile and enjoyed the view and basked in the sunshine. 

Part of the hiking trail.  It was a good mix of hills and level land.

Our second stop was Nanadaru, or Seven Waterfalls Park.  I won't bore you with pictures of all seven, but it was really pretty area.

Another suspension bridge, but this one had an uphill and a downhill part built into it.  The picture doesn't do it's coolness level any justice, but I tried. 

A fun game along the way.  You could throw some money in the wooden box and then try getting 3 pebbles into the middle of the ring of rocks on the big rock.  It was probably about 20 feet away.  Everyone who did it when I was watching missed. Womp, womp!

Our attempt to be a bit artsy.

A sample of the beautiful colors along the stream. 

One of the smaller waterfalls.

I'm not sure what the full point of this bridge is, besides avoiding construction on the side of a mountain.  And obviously earning the area major bonus points for creativity and awesomeness.    It was part of our route home and we were happy to take it. 

A beautiful rest stop/park on the way home. 

Just some pretty crunchy leaves.

They must grow wasabi in the area because you could buy wasabi flavored everything at the rest stop, including wasabi ice cream (which is fairly common here actually). 

Because Bryan will be taking over a private dental practice in Oxford, Ohio whenever we are done in Japan, we often look at houses for sale in that area.  We've never been too serious about it, but one day we found a house that we both loved.  We contacted a realtor, had Bryan's parents go check it out, and after some video tours and consideration, we put an offer in on it.  We got into a bidding war and lost, but it was a fun experience.  

Yes, you can buy a house in Ohio while living in Japan.

 I love to share my favorite food with my co-workers, so Lin (the other American English teacher) and I decided to host a Christmas party for the English department.  We cooked lots of traditional Christmas foods including a turkey, a ham, all the sides, and lots of appetizers and cookies.  We had a gift exchange and played some fun games too.  They seemed to really enjoy it, especially the food.   

My co-workers (and two of their kids) and me with our gift exchange presents. 

The Japanese don't celebrate Christmas for the religious reasons like we do, but they still enjoy celebrating the season and have picked up some of our traditions, including Christmas lights.  They call them illuminations though and they often leave them up for a bit longer than we do.  I've learned that if the Japanese are going to do something, they like to go big and really do it right.  Back in June we did the Warrior Dash at Sagamiko Pleasure Forest, but once it turns chilly, they turn a section of the park into an illumination wonderland.  They also have some children's rides, if you show up in the afternoon.  I'm slowly learning how to take better pictures, but I haven't hit the Christmas lights and/or photos at night subject yet so bear with me on the pics and remember they don't do any justice to the beauty. 

This view is from the ferris wheel, at the top of the hill.  As you can see, there are just hillsides of lights (they change colors), a room that puts on a show to music (bottom right), a "Rainbow Road" lit ski lift to get up the hill, and so much more.  Very cool!

One of the simpler areas, but still pretty. 

It seems everyone in the Navy enjoys throwing a good party and Christmas season is one of the busiest party seasons of the year.

Numata-San is one of the hygienists that works with Bryan.  She's super nice and extremely helpful when we need help translating.  Love her!

Bryan ordered his outfit from an authentic vintage clothing website.  He's very proud of the whole ensemble. 

We did a couple of other Christmas parties, but then spent the actual day mostly to ourselves.  My old laptop was ready to die any day, so I got a new MacBook Air and Bryan's original iPad was also on the fritz, so he got the new one.  We're both happy to have new ways to Facetime with friends and family back home. 

Our good friend Rachel and James and their kiddos joined us for a dinner of Cornish game hens for Christmas day dinner.  It was our first time making hens and we used to much salt in the brine but they were delicious. 

 Bryan was fortunate enough to have several extra days off during the holidays.  We took a couple of day trips, including one to Kamakura to do some hiking, between Christmas and New Years.

 I love how the hundreds of year old parks/temples/shrines are just in the middle of the modern cities. 

Part of one of the temples we visited. 

Boys will be boys.

 

Cheeeese!!

The trail was mostly the natural terrain, but occasionally there are man-made steps. 

Halfway through the hike we hit another shrine.  The Ema have peoples prayers on them. 

Ahhhh!  I love them!   After the hike, we passed through a shopping area, including a whole shop full of maneki-neko, or lucky cats. I want to buy them all!!

We also did a few other fun things in December, but I included them in my separate post on New Years.  Feel free to check that out if you haven't yet!