Robot Claw

Legend has it that Enoshima Island, on the coast about 80 minutes south of Tokyo, was the summer palace of a trio of female gods. Now it happily exists as a tourist destination, and if any of you ever plan on going to Japan put this place very high on your list of sights to see.

Such are the sights of the three shrines (and surroundings) on Enoshima.

Although an island, Enoshima is connected to the Shonan mainland by a landbridge (about a 5 minute walk). The island is hardly flat, and to fully explore you need to be able to navigate a great many stairs. After Takao, we were a little concerned. But we prevailed!

< No!! More stairs?!?!

About halfway up the island there is a new ‘attraction’ at one of the shrines, a large loop made of reeds, which apparently needs to be walked through in a particular pattern to ensure luck?

< Eh??!

Of course I had to do this, and the results were astounding as this video shows!

There’s also a ‘love-love’ shrine halfway up, with the requisite charms available for sale…

On one of these plaques, I found a little red tick-spider thingy:

< Tick-Spider Thingy

And, as she does, KLS made me pose like a fool in front of the demon statues:

< Unstoppable?

At the summit there is a little collection of restaurants and an arcade with ancient games. There is also an octopus-flattening shop:

She takes two complete octopi (about 10 cm in length each) and places them onto a large hot press, then closes the top and ratchets it down with a crank. After a minute or so she opens it and removes a nice crispy octopus disc like you can see in the second picture. The poor things are flattened utterly into a giant chip! (Yes, they are dead first by the way)

The path continues to the other side of the mountain/island, down some steps and onto a rocky shelf behind. This place is popular with fishermen, who cast into the rough waters behind the island. It’s also home to a most unusual form of crustacean.

They vary in size up to about 5 cm (the one in the photo was about 3.5), move quickly and – as you can see – resemble pillbugs. They seem to be land-dwelling things, and KLS was apalled by their very existence. The rocks behind enoshima are home to large colonies of them, and they scuttle away like cockroaches when someone approaches. Interesting little guys they are…

Getting back off the island required climbing the hundreds of steps we took down to the rocks, which was a torturous and near soul-destroying ordeal. But (of course) we made it (helped by a delicious ice cream) and happily, on the way off, found one of our favourite Japanese stores – the ‘tiny glass animal shop’:

< ZOMG!

Some of you reading this can look forward to a trinket from this place…

Getting to Enoshima in the first place requires riding the famous Enodan train line from Kamakura station, which we had done in the morning and did again on the way back in the afternoon.

< Enoden Line

For JBF’s benefit, a video of the Enoden line in action! (Yes, I know I mislabelled the video… I’m tired!)

We didn’t really do much in Kamakura (home of Japan’s most famous Buddha statue) except check out the souvenir shops on the walk to the Enoden station. One of them was home to a stunning selection of (fake) weaponry, including such gems as ‘Staff Of Saruman’, ‘Chaos Sword Odin’, and a highly detailed magic book (for those amongst us disinclined to wield a bladed weapon):

Two food shots…

…and a me sleeping on the train shot…

< Not fake!

…leads me to this striking image (care of KLS):

< ???

The legendary Enoshima Uzumaki spider perhaps? This web was only a centimeter or so in diameter, and hidden under a leaf as it was, extremely difficult to photograph (my camera simply wouldn’t focus on it). I poked around a bit for the owner with no luck. I wonder if it was as beautiful as it’s creation?

Oh yes, we saw a squirrel! Our first Japanese squirrel! But that can wait for another post…

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 4th, 2009 at 7:56 pm and is filed under Family, Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.