Enoshima Walking and Enoshima Shrine – Okutsunomiya

More photos from the interior of little Enoshima island off the coast of Kanagawa Prefecture! Having braved the stairs all the way up to the middle of the island there are even more things to see, souvenir shops, the third and final part of the Enoshima Shrine and a few small restaurants serving the “uminoie” food in the form of ramen, noodles, grilled seafood and shaved ice deserts. Usually uminoie are little beach huts or tiny restaurants set up on the beach during summer to serve drinks and light food to tourists but these restaurants are on top of the island. Some of them have fantastic views of the ocean though. There are plenty of vending machines on the way as well, one of which had a couple of mystery servings!

There is also the option of visiting the 60m tall observation tower in the middle of the Samuel Cooking botanical garden if you want even better views of the area. On this visit I was happy enough taking pictures of the tower rather than from the tower. There are combination tickets called “Enopass” for 1000 yen that includes the entrance fee for the garden, the tower, the ocean front caves and the escalators bringing visitors up to the top of the island comfortably (really recommended if you are not into walking or used to the hot summer weather). The Enopass is even more worthwhile if you also plan on visiting the other attractions around Enoshima, like the aquarium, as it gives a discount.

The third portion of Enoshima Shrine is called Okutsunomiya and well worth a quick visit. Do not miss the famous turtle painting in the roof of the prayer structure! There are quite a lot of things to discover in this part of the shrine so I won’t give away all of them. I couldn’t resist sharing a few massive fruits! The sign calls them “oniyuzu” (鬼柚子), or demon yuzu but they are more commonly known as shishiyuzu (獅子柚子) or lion yuzu, due to the resemblance to a lion or demons face. They are not actually related to yuzu at all, but more closely related to the pomelo fruits (a distant relative in the citrus fruit family). A shishiyuzu is about 5-6 times as big as a yuzu (and yuzu are already much larger than oranges). They are not good for eating raw but often used in marmalade or candied. The impressive look of the fruits also means that they are sometimes kept in shops to bring in big luck and they have been known to scare off demons and ghosts. This shopped sold them for only 200 yen each, very cheap but maybe it is because these weren’t very attractive? I would think they would be even more effective against evil spirits though! If you are lucky you can sometimes find these in very good green grocers for 700-1500 yen a piece, from December to February when they are in season.

Monocle Cafe – Yurakucho

The weekend has been rainier than most and unusually quiet here in Tokyo. I have been meaning to check out the new Hankyu department store in Yurakucho for some time but never had an hour to spare until yesterday. The store is paired with another huge department store for ladies, but the Hankyu Men’s is by far the more quiet one. Below the first store there is the first Monocle Cafe in Tokyo, Monocle originally being a magazine that reads like a catalog for stuff. Still, they know how to design a nice modern cafe and the unusual gin and tonic with yuzu jam was well worth the time and money. I don’t think there was much gin in it though. The cafe was surprisingly crowded and as fits the the most modern emporium of men’s fashion in Tokyo, most customers were about five times as stylish as me. I set my camera and snapped a few shots while leafing through the magazines and conveniently enough I found an article about the very same cafe that I was sitting in. The espresso was average, the tonic and yuzu was excellent. A new favorite, even!