Riding the rails to Shimoda!

A couple months ago I decided to sell my car and become completely dependent on walking and public transportation. So, when we had the urge to go on an overnight trip to a hot spring resort town we had to do the whole thing using only buses and trains. We choose Shimoda as our destination.

After 3 hours of hopping from train to train we finally arrived at the train terminal in Shimoda.

The exit gate is staffed with well dressed attendants  that collect tickets from wickets fashioned after Commodore Perry's Black Ships.

Just a quick note about the town of Shimoda: there are flowers everywhere! Every shop, house, restaurant and everything else in between has flower pots hanging everywhere. It's quite beautiful.

While Emi was visiting here favorite recycled kimono shop I wandered around the old section of town.

I love the old style of the buildings in this district of town.

The weeping willows are just starting to grow their green leaves. Signs of spring abound!

Trees and gas lamps line the small stream that runs through here.

Lovely atmosphere here. Many couples both young and old were walking around holding hands and enjoying the day.

We have visited Shimoda many times before but this was the first time where I wasn't driving a car. So, we spent the afternoon walking along the waterfront without a care in the world.

No need to worry about where to park, just put one foot in front of the other and enjoy.

After looking at a tourist map we decided to walk the Townsend Harris walking path.

Townsend Harris was the first American Counsel General posted to Japan and he had a habit of taking long walks in Shimoda.  I won't get into a long history lesson on Towsend Harris, there's plenty of information about him on the internet; or, one can watch the John Wayne movie "The Barbarian and the Geisha".

The path curves around the bay where many nice yachts and fishing boats are moored.

We walked for over an hour before turning around and heading back to town.

After spending the night at a great hotel that I've covered here before in a past blog, we returned to the train station for our return trip to home.

The Shimoda station is more of a transportation terminal. This is a place where people can connect with other forms of transportation like buses, and taxis to reach their final destination.

I guess there is no escaping the long reach of the McDonald's franchise.

When they opened the departure gate for us to board our train we got the biggest surprise of the trip.

Instead of getting on a standard passenger train like we took to get to Shimoda we boarded a train designed to maximize the viewing pleasure of the train line along the Izu peninsula coast.

This is amazing! Much more fun than driving a car.

Coastal viewing from my seat in the train is incredible.

This run up the coast was easily the highlight of the trip.

Eventually we reached the city of Atami and we had to transfer over to a regular train to  complete our trip home. Our trip as pedestrians using public transportation was a big success; looking forward to our next!

Bonus photos!
Just a few flower pictures from around Yokohama Park.

More to come in my next post.

Thanks for stopping by!
Mike