For our first full day back in Tokyo we decided to go to Enoshima to visit the aquarium there. There's a number of ways you can get to Enoshima Aquarium and the Katase-Enoshima station is the closest station to the aquarium. We caught a limited express train on the Tokaido Main Line. This was one of those trains you see running through Tokyo with the double decker green cars (E233-3000). This was our first time riding this train and it seemed to work a bit differently. Firstly, its free to ride with the JR pass, but even with the green car JR pass, there are no seat reservations. Instead you just have to sit where there's open seats. It's kinda a pain because you don't know where the open seats are either, so there's a chance you might miss out if you spend too much time looking for a good seat rather than just taking the first open seats you find. If you use a Suica IC card, the process is fairly normal. Tap your card at the ticket gate at the departure station and again at the arrival station, but if you want to sit in the green car, there's a sensor above the seat in the green car that you tap your IC card on as well. There's also a worker who monitors the green cars and makes sure no one uses the green car without paying, it's somewhat entertaining watching people get booted out to the normal cars...
Anyways, we caught the limited express to Fujisawa Station and transferred to the Odakyu-Enoshima Line to Katase-Enoshima station. It's a short 10 minute walk from the station to the aquarium which you can see the beach and Enoshima Island along the way. On a clear day you can also see Mt. Fuji from this area. We came to Enoshima aquarium for a short pilgrimage for Seishun Buta Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume wo Minai (Seishun Buta Yarou). Enjoyable anime that's set in Enoshima, and there are a number of scenes with the Enoshima Aquarium.
The aquarium is really nice and since it's a distance away from Tokyo, it's also not as crowded as others we've been to. Best of all, they had lumpfish which was a total surprise and nice views of the beach and Enoshima Island. Definitely recommend it and would come back here again.
 |
| Enoshima Aquarium from Seishun Buta Yarou |
 |
| Lumpfish! |
 |
| Baby Lumpfish! |
 |
| These elementary school kid were distinguished by their red bandannas which probably wouldn't be okay in the US... |
Lianne still wasn't over her cold so we didn't want to walk around too much. We had planned to visit Enoshima island but its quite a walk over the bridge so we decided to head back to Tokyo. Instead of taking the same way back though, we walked to Enoshima station along the Enoshima Electric Railway (EnoDen) to catch the train back to Fujisawa station. The road between Enoshima station and the beach is lined with a bunch of little shops with souvenirs. We stopped at one shop that was selling T-shirts which was basically someones house, and the owner pretty much leaves his house open and walks around the street and checks to see if there's any customers periodically. Very friendly guy and he got really excited when we told him we were from Hawaii, I could tell he wanted to talk more to us but I don't know enough Japanese for that... He gave us a free bag when we bought two shirts.
Enoshima station is one of the stops along the EnoDen. It's a historic railway built back in 1902 that still has a very nostalgic feel to it and is entirely worth spending a day to check out everything about it. The railway runs along the coastline, right in front of temples, and runs through towns and neighborhoods (literally, feet away from peoples backyards). There's a number of things to do around most of the stations, from checking out the beach, Enoshima Island, temples including Kotoku-In with the great Buddha of Kamakura. To make it easier, EnoDen sells a 1 day pass for just ¥600.
We didn't have the time to check everything out so we just caught the train back to Fujisawa station, had lunch at McDonalds and caught the limited express again back to Tokyo station.
Fujisawa station appears a number of times in Seishun Buta Yarou as well.
 |
| In some areas the train runs right through neighborhoods, only residents are allowed to walk the tracks in these areas. |
 |
| The commercial in the anime is actually for a real drink. |
Back in Tokyo, we rested a bit and headed back out to Tokyo station and caught a train along the Chuo line to Nakano station to go to Nakano Broadway. We went to Nakano Broadway on our last trip, and there's so many little shops selling all kinds of anime goods. There's a lot of second hand shops including a huge Mandarake complex where you can finds tons of stuff at great prices. Unfortunately this time around, it seemed like there were only about half of the shops still open, it felt like there was a lot less stores. Last time we spent a couple hours here and we didn't even cover all the stores. This time we saw everything within about 2 hours and that's with waking back and forth trying to find the shops with the best prices... Still definitely worth the trip but disappointed to see fewer shops open.
 |
| Walk through this shopping arcade to get to Nakano Broadway, tons of little shops and places to eat. |
Finished up our shopping and headed back to Tokyo station, quick stop to Curry Shop Alps and back to the hotel.
Comments
Post a Comment