Misatos Birthday Enoshima, Yokohama, China Town and Kamakura

Went down to Yokohama for Misatos Birthday, there is a famous china town there, and Kamakura the home to the largest buddha, and Enoshima a popular beach town are near by. First we headed to Enoshima and had some local tiny fish on rice and Enoshima beer.

Below is a Enoshima original Takosenbei (octopus cracker), little octopus battered and then stuffed into a press to make a cracker, literally a flattened octopus cracker and you can hear it squealing as it dies, but pretty tasty.

Next we went to Kamakura to see the Big Buddha, I think this is one of the bigger ones in Japan, maybe the biggest sitting one?

We also happened to go by an old chateau type place that once belonged to some kind of weathly Japanese dude, but it had a beautiful rose garden so that was our main purpose since Misato loves roses and it was her birthday and all.

Below is local transportation carrying the surfboards on the sides of bikes. I dont think people in the US appreciate how convenient bikes are over cars sometimes and the multifunction that actually have opportunity for. Misato and I actually rented bikes for this day trip around Kamakura, great way to see the town and get exercise and not be trapped in a car stuck in traffic.

Next we went Hokokuji shrine that has a tea house and a really beautiful huge bamboo garden.

THe next morning we ate some breakfast buns filled with meat at the Yokohama China town.

Throughout Yokohama there were a bunch of other rose gardens so we mostly did that throughout the day and for some reason sketching seems to be a very popular hobby for elderly people here, we saw them everywhere. We then stumbled upon the cup noodle museum, which seems like a great place for kids. Kids running everywhere, and you can create your own unique cup noodle flavor and added ingredients, or you can even go through the whole manufacturing process and make the raw noodles. We just took the self guided tour. Kids are free, adults are cheap enough that we figured the price was worth it for a 30 min quick visit.

Then we were back to China Town. This is the main gate.

Misato did a some research before and found this restaurant with delicious chinese style yakisoba, and they had tsingtao beer, definitely easy to drink a couple of those after touristing all day.