One day, I went out by myself to several places along the Enodin train line, not far from Fujisawa. It’s one of the oldest train lines in Japan, which they run old style trains on, and the route is nice and scenic, going through small towns, along the beach and through lots of greenery. Anyway, at the end of the line is Kamakura, where I got off to go and see a great temple in a park.
While I was there, I got pretty hungry and decided to grab something quickly from the 7-11 on the way back to the station. Walking out, eating my weird hot-dog thing, I heard and felt a rush of wind. I looked at my hand to discover that the thing I was eating was gone and I was left holding the empty packet. Looking around, there was a big eagle absconding with my lunch. Incredible accuracy to come from behind and pinch my lunch without even touching me. All I felt was the rush of wind.
Another day, I decided to head down to the beach, because it like being a nice day and I wanted to try to swim if it was warm enough. I jogged down to get nice and warm, predicting (correctly) that the water would be freezing. It’s a good half hour run, or 45min walk. The closer I got the shittier the weather.
By the time I hit the beach, it was overcast and blowing a gale, so rather than chill on the beach and get sandblasted, I went to Enoshima Island to climb around the rocks. This wasn’t the most clever idea, since the seas were huge and dangerous looking, it was windy and kind of cold, but there was nobody around and I wanted to make the trip worthwhile. On the way back, I thought I’d find somewhere to sit and watch the impressive seas along the break wall made of these big oddly shaped concrete things.
So, I set my shoes down on what I thought would be a safe spot and went looking for somewhere good to sit. Suddenly, even though it was already bloody windy, an even bigger gust came along and knocked my shoes off their perch, down into the water underneath the break wall. I tried to chase them, but there a strong current sucked them away, with no hope of recovery. So, I ended up walking gingerly back to Lepa’s shoeless, along a gravelly bike path, getting very odd looks from locals. I had another pair of shoes back at her place and decided it would be better to brave the walk back sans shoes, rather than wandering into a shop without shoes and trying to buy another pair, not being able to explain why I had none on me in Japanese.
Busy times ahead, so more when I can…
