Day 1 in Shimoda: My husband, no matter where we go, wants to go the beach. Three summers ago, on our first trip to Japan with the kids, he insisted on going to the beach. I looked at him thinking (Okay…I didn’t just think that I might have actually said it) “Really? We are going to fly all the way to Japan so we can go to the beach???” I don’t recall Japan for being known as a beach destination. I am glad he insisted though. We ended up going to Miyakojima Island in Okinawa for about a week and we thoroughly enjoyed our stay. The sand was white and fine as perfectly bleached flour and the water a heavenly blue. We had a meal plan, breakfast and dinner, at the Miyakojima Tokyu Hotel and the food was amazing.
So when he once again insisted on a beach vacation while in Japan, I didn’t put up too much of a fight. As nice as Okinawa was I did not feel like flying to Okinawa again. (By the way, if you buy your domestic air ticket while still in the States, it is so much cheaper than buying air once in Japan.) I opted for Shimoda on the Izu Peninsula instead; a 2hr and 40min train ride from Tokyo Station.
The people who man the rail ticket office in Japan are very competent and full of information. One of the things they tell you is that you don’t need to buy tickets for your young children if they don’t take up seats. They don’t just mean infants…they are fine if a child is 6 if he or she does not sit in a seat but instead sits on your lap. There are also two types of tickets, reserved and unreserved. Obviously it makes more sense not to buy tickets if you have young children if you are taking the unreserved car. No one is guaranteed a seat so if you get to Tokyo Station and you are the first one on the train you get the seats. I thought about doing that until the ticketing agent talked me into taking the reserved train to Shimoda. He sold the Super View Odoriko train to me; he said “ The Super View is a beautiful train! For just JPY 700+ you get to ride on a really nice train. The regular Odoriko is old.” He said I still didn’t need to buy tickets for the kids and I decided to take the risk. (I believe there is no child fare.) As it was, round trip tickets for adults cost JPY 25,000+ (almost $300 with the current horrible exchange rate).
Since it was drizzling in the morning we decided to take a cab from Roppongi to Tokyo station instead of the subway. After the girls’ revolt yesterday, we decided making them walk through the rain with their umbrellas and rolling backpacks would not go over too well. We arrived at Tokyo Station almost an hour before our departure time. What to do with your time at the station is not really a problem. On B1 there is a large number of food stores selling a vast variety of goodies. It was heaven! I stocked up on snacks and lunch food for our train ride. Things were looking good!
As we boarded our train to Shimoda, I was glad I didn’t buy tickets for the kids. The train was fairly empty. It was Tuesday and the Japanese schools do not let out for summer vacation until July 20. In our car we had perhaps 6 others besides us – lots of empty seats. And the train was beautiful; lots of large windows which stretched from the top of the car to below the hand rest of the seat. Not many more people got on at the later stations (Shinagawa, Yokohama etc) and we rode in luxury all the way to the last stop, our destination, Izukyu Shimoda.
At the station, we learned that the hotel operated a free shuttle and lucky us, the shuttle was waiting at the station. The ride to the hotel wasn’t long but the road steep and curvy. The hotel was set on top of a hill and nothing else on the hill except for the hotel. The beach was all the way down across a narrow road. The setting was pretty…it isn’t Kauai but it’s quite nice.
My mother’s friend, who is also the widow of our former pediatrician in Tokyo, was a member at a vacation club which operated a hotel nearby, Hotel Japan. She invited us over to her hotel which had nice pools and a water slide. It also straddled two of the nicer beaches in Shimoda. We walked down to one of the beaches and had a great time playing in the surf and sand. There were quite a few surfers in the water. We had a great afternoon and were glad that we came to Shimoda.
The girls had their first ofuro/onsen experience – public bath/hot springs. The bath at Hotel Japan was very nice – large, zen like dressing room with massage chairs! And a large public bath with a manmade waterfall for a view. The girls had fun but found the bath temperature way too hot. I did too so we didn’t soak for long at all. The public bath is an interesting concept…everyone strips, scrubs a lot outside of the bath and then takes a long dip in scalding water. Obviously the Japanese find it soothing and calming. Personally with two kids and one of them with no control over the hand held shower head spraying everyone nearby, it wasn’t a soothing experience at all. One of the older women in the bath was definitely displeased we were there causing some commotion.
We stayed for dinner at Hotel Japan and ended up having a kaiseki type dinner, Japanese style multi-course menu. It was a nice experience but I had not planned on such a nice dinner (it wasn't really our choice). We were planning on simple meals during our stay at Shimoda...well that was a budget breaker.
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