A last few days at Cafe Be

After coming back from our roadtrip, we still had a couple of days left at Cafe Be, before it was time to head off to Tokyo. It was pretty calm at Cafe Be for those last days, so  we got had the opportunity to check out the surrounding area for a bit more.

On Friday, in the morning, we decided to explore the lovely Jogasaki coast a bit more (the place where we visited the famous suspension bridge several times before already). So we took  Captain's car down to a parking lot, located not far from the coastline - this time we were planning to explore the coast a bit further South.

The first interesting feature of the coast we explored was a so called Oyado-Koyado tidal pools. A steep staircase took us down to a small "cove" nearly at sea-level, where there is a kind of natural pool. I suppose the idea here is that in high tide, the water level is above the pool, and it fills up, whereas the pool becomes accessible at low tide, when the sea is calm. When we were there, there were some pretty impressive waves hitting the coastline, so we didn't dare explore the pools. But the views were amazing.

We then continued walking Southwards along the coastline, and came upon a second suspension bridge, this one called Hashidate suspension bridge. It was a bit less impressive than the one we'd visited three times already, but still the views from up there were rather impressive (and in my case, vertigo-provoking...)

We continued following the coastline until we reached a small fishing port, where we decided to stop our excursion (had to get back for the lunchtime service)! Before heading back to the hotel, we stopped by at the Izu Kogen train station to buy our tickets for Tokyo, for the next day. Snif...

In the afternoon, as this was our last day, we decided to head off to a beach. After all, we'd not really had the opportunity to swim much in the ocean at all, which is a pity. So we made our way to a small town just after Izu Kogen, where there was a beach suitable for swimming, apparently. And indeed we eventually found a nice sandy beach. Unfortunately the waves were still pretty scary-looking, so we didn't really do any proper swimming, so we contented ourselves at enjoying the spectacle of nature for a while (well, I admit I did venture out into waves for a little bit...).

The evening dinner was quite emotional, as it was our last meal with our dear new friends (Captain, his wife Mariko-san, Togashi-san and her daughter Aina). We actually had sake for our first time in Japan to honor the occasion! I must say we spend a lovely three works at Cafe Be. Sometimes there was a lot of work, but that was just fine with us, as it was actually quite fun to see how a hotel/restaurant functions. And we were spoilt with great food every evening (and  breakfast and lunch time as well, of course) as well as by the friendliness of our co-workers (or friends, as I would rather call them).

The next day then,  was our last day, as we were catching our train to Tokyo in the afternoon. So still one breakfast and lunch service to be done (I also did a bit of hoovering to finish with the impression of having worked really hard!). There were some emotional moments again as we bade our farewells (and took a great group picture, of course!), and then it was time to head off to the train station. It started raining like crazy just as it was time to leave - perhaps a sign that it was time to leave!?

Domo arigato Gozaimasu to our friends Captain, Mariko-san, Togashi-san, Aina and of course Mr "I love English" (Takero-san)!