Monday 24 February
This morning we got up and prepared for our day trip to Kawazu, down the coast on the Izu peninsula. We met my sister- and mother-in-law in the hotel lobby just before 07:00 and walked across to Shinagawa Station, and to City Bakery. We sat at a table and ordered some breakfast. I had scrambled eggs on toast with smoked salmon, and a pain au chocolat. My wife just had a wholemeal croissant with cappuccino, but had bought a mixed berry scone to take with us for later. The eggs were good, but the pain au chocolat was a bit disappointing, being quite ready and not very flaky.
We headed to JR platform 12 for our train departing at 08:07 for Kawazu. It was a limited express service down the Izu Peninsula, stopping only a couple of times near Tokyo, but later in the journey stopping a bit more frequently at the larger towns dotted down the coast. We arrived at Kawazu at 10:30, with many others on the train disembarking there too. The station was decked out in pink sakura festival decorations and posters.
We walked south a couple of blocks to the river, along whose banks the sakura trees were just coming into bloom. It turned out we were probably a few days too early. There were some blossoms out in full bloom, but most of the buds on the trees had not yet opened. The route west along the river was busy with visitors, but not as crowded as I’d expected.
The way was also lined with dozens of food stalls serving various snacks and meals: grilled skewers of meats and seafood, skewers of mochi balls, dango, takoyaki, noodles, fried potato things, sausages, and much more. There was also a lot of pink food with sakura flavour, including sakura much, sakura udon noodles, and sakura latte drinks.
We walked about halfway up the riverside sakura area, past a small park where some people were sitting and soaking their bare feet in steaming hot water under a roof shelter. The air was very cold, and when some grey cloud came in it started snowing! It wasn’t very much, and the pellets of snow melted as soon as they landed on most things, but we saw small bits of ice collected on our coats and hats. It was never more than a light sprinkle and didn’t last long either, but continued on and off at intervals through the day. Still, I was pretty excited as it’s the first time I’ve ever seen snow falling in my life.
I bought some takoyaki to eat, but they were a bit disappointing – not made fresh to order, but as I discovered pre-made and taken from the heated display. My wife bought us some sakura mochi, wrapped in shiso leaf and grilled until just a bit crisp on the outside. That was very pink tasting, but pretty good and warming in the cold weather. She also got herself a sakura milk latte, which she said was very sweet. And I ate a breadstick which my wife had bought for me at breakfast, with chocolate chips, ginger, and lime – an interesting combination of flavours, but which worked very well.
We wandered off the river bank towards the main street of the town to find a cafe to sit inside and for the others to have some coffee. We ran across Cafe Ailana, a tiny cafe built onto the front of the owner’s house, with only four tables and eight seats inside. We were about to pass it in search of somewhere that made tea, but when I searched Google Maps for nearby cafes it showed that Ailana had the best rated coffee in town, which was enough to convince my co-travellers to try it. It was cosy, and had a turntable and dozens fo jazz albums on vinyl, although the jazz that was playing seemed to come from some other source. The menu was entirely in Japanese and I used Google Translate to determine it was essentially half a dozen different blends of coffees, plus a glass of freshly squeezed mandarin juice, as the only drink options. They also has chiffon cake slices and small scones. The others all ordered the “most popular” coffee blend, while I got the juice. The owner prepared the coffee intricately using a hand-poured drip filter. They all declared that it was indeed extremely good coffee. My juice was very good too.
We separated, my in-laws heading down the street back to the station to take it easy and look at some shops before meeting me and my wife back at the station for our return train. We, on the other hand, trekked further up the river to the original Kawazu Zakura tree, still standing in the front yard of Mr. Katsumi Iida’s house, where he planted it some time around 1955, from a seedling he found. This tree turned out to be a mutant cultivar which bloomed very early, and was propagated to produce the early blooming sakura trees of Kawazu. This tree, it turned out, was indeed in full bloom, perhaps thanks to a sunny and warm position unlike the slightly slower ones lining the river banks.
Having seen this, we headed back to town via a footpath that led through small fields planted with vegetables and fruit trees, with an occasional flowering sakura here and there. This was a great walk, showing us a more rural lifestyle and landscape.
We met up with my in-laws at the station, where we waited for our return train to Shinagawa, departing at 15:44. It was bang on time, and we settled in for the journey back. The sun went down as we approached Yokohama, rendering the sky and the sea coast beautiful with muted pink colours.
Once back at the hotel, we agreed to meet at 19:00 for dinner at the nearby Obica restaurant just a short walk away. This is a restaurant that originated in Rome, where my wife and I had dined on a previous trip. We ordered a couple of pizzas to share, one simple tomato, buffalo mozzarella, and basil leaves, and one with prosciutto and piled high with mixed spinach and rocket leaves. After finishing these, I had a slice of a chocolate almond cake, while T. ate the accompanying cherry gelato that came with it.
Then we retired back to our rooms for the night. Tomorrow, I have to begin my work section of the trip!