Enoshima

I'm a little embarrassed because I think we went to Enoshima back in January.  I guess that is a testament to how busy I've been this year.

Enoshima is a small island not too far from where we live, maybe about an hour.  There is a bridge connecting it so it was easy to drive there.  Japan seems to always have lots of sea food but Enoshiima had even more beach type stores.

This Hello Kitty store was the kids favorite.

It had this hilarious toy that copies everything you say.  I think we could have a lot of fun with it at home.


The kids were dying to get an ice cream even though it was freezing cold.  We decided to share the strawberry sweetened condensed milk flavor.  It was good but nothing unexpected or extraordinary.

The real treat was this squished octopus chip.  They literally picked up the whole octopus and we got to watch them squish and fry it.  The amazing thing was that everyone in our family liked it.

Of course, like everywhere in Japan there was a big shrine.  This one had so many stairs you could pay for the elevator.

We paid for it but I would not next time.  We had a few hours to kill and thought we would be up and down several times.  I was wrong they ticket is only good fo once up the two...or was it three, elevators.

At the top they had a tulip festival going on.  It was very small compared to the one in Washington, but the flowers were pretty.  I just couldn't get over how they had tulips in the middle of the winter.

The observation tower had a great 360 degree view.

There were quite a few people there taking pictures of their dogs with the tulips.

The kids ran around this gondala for a while.  They were reenacting that scene from the Sound of Music, "I am 16..."

The main reason we went on the day we did was because they were doing their winter illumination.  That is why we had hours to spend waiting for them to turn the lights on.