Arriving at the Izu Peninsula

The next leg of our Asian adventure took us South-East of Tokyo, to the Izu Peninsula. It's a rather popular holiday/weekend break destination for Japanese people, in particular for people from Tokyo. The plan was for us to stay at a hotel in Izu Kogen for three weeks. The place is owned by a friend of Matsuoka-san's.

We started our journey by taking the Shinkansen from the Tokyo main station to Atami - a seaside town and a kind of "gateway" to the Izu peninsula. The original plan had been to leave our suitcases in a locker at the train station and walk around for a couple of hours before catching the local train to Izu Kogen. Unfortunately, we didn't find a locker big enough for our big suitcase. So we ended up just heading down to the beach, dragging the big suitcase along, and then hike back up to the train station. From what we saw, Atami seemed like a nice enough place, if a bit like a tourist trap.

We arrived in Izu Kogen, to find our good friend Matsuoka waiting for us. He took us to our "new home", called Cafe Be (as in the Beatles song "Let it Be", as we found out later). We met our new boss called simply "Captain" and the rest of the crew. Captain explained the setup - we were to get free lodging and food in exchange for helping out at the hotel. Sounds more than fair to me - should be a great way to improve our Japanese as well!

The first night, there was a BBQ planned, which was a great way for us to get into the rhythm of things. I mostly manned the grill with Matsuoka, as we prepared the food. It was all great fun. The food was great, the beer flowed, and everybody (staff and other guests) was great fun. What a fantastic welcome! We crawled into bed with a slightly sore head, but very happy with how things were turning out.

The next day, we were ordered by Captain to take his car and go and check out the nearby Jogasaki coast. It's one of the top tourist spots at the Izu peninsula, and for very good reason. The rocky coastline is absolutely stunning, reminiscent of Bretagne, Cornwall or the Californian coastline... We climbed up to the top of a lighthouse, from where the view was pretty amazing.

Just next to the lighthouse, one can also check out the famous Kadowakizaki suspension bridge. It's famous, I suppose, because it's an impressive piece of engineering. But sadly it's also a common place where people commit suicide. A lot of movies and TV series are shot here, apparently.

Around lunch time, we had a surprise visitor from the UK, Chie, paying us a visit! She just happened to be in Japan the same time as us, visiting her family in Kyoto. So she was kind enough to catch the train to come and see us, which was really cool. We had a very nice dinner indeed with her and Matusoka-san and his family, during which we got to try some of the famous Cafe Be pizzas (and plenty of other very tasty stuff as well). We finished the night rather late (or rather, early in the morning), after downing quite a few sakes and beers.

The next day, it was time to see off our dear friend Chie. But before that, we took her on a bit of a touristy trip - where else than Jogasaki Coast !? It's not like we know any other places (yet) where to take her or anything... ;-) The scenery was just as stunning as the day before! We then took Chie to the train station, from where she got on the train back home. Great to see Chie again - and in Japan of all places ;)

After lunch it was time to say good by to Matsuoka-san as well, as he was heading back to Tokyo. So now, the real work starts ;-)