Golden Week

For Golden Week I went to Tokyo and the Izu peninsula, and I had an amazing time. On the first weekend I went to Tokyo with some friends. I stayed in the North side of Tokyo, which is more relaxing than where I usually stay.

On the first day I went to an exhibition called Katagami Style at the Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum. It was brilliant and very inspiring, I want to try and make stencils for this type of dying and printing. I then went to Ueno Park and relaxed, its was a lovely day to walk around the lake. We met this man feeding birds, there were so many round him.

The next day I went to a baseball game with some friends. I was exciting and fun, and I actually understood more about the game this time.

On the second weekend I was supposed to go to Nii-jima Island but the weather was very bad on Thursday and the ferry was cancelled. Everyone was stranded at Ito station because the trains wouldn't go to Shimoda until 11am.

I didn’t want to waste the day so I went to the Museum of Art in Atami to see the exhibition of traditional Japanese paintings. They were so beautiful and painted in such detail but unfortunately I could take pictures. The gardens were great as well but the view was clouded over.  

 The next day, three friends and I decided to rent a car and travel around the Izu. I was amazing and the weather was so good that I actually got a tan!

We went to Shirahama beach in Shimoda and I tried to surf. The waves were very big and I couldn’t stand up but I had fun trying.

That evening we camped out and my American friend Anna taught us how to make s’mores. They are roasted marshmallows trapped between two honey crackers with chocolate. It was a delicious dessert and they were so much fun to make.

The next morning we went to Tatado beach and relaxed. In the afternoon we went to see the Jogazaki coastline and the suspension bridge. The coastline is very rugged and beautiful, and it reminded me of the coast in Ireland.

This was all of us on the bridge, it moves a bit when you are walking on it. As you can see it was very windy!

That night we stayed at the Onsen hostel in Ito called K's Hostel. (I stayed there with my mum and aunt so I'm not going to put more picture up.) It is a traditional style ryokan and it is very relaxing because you feel like you are in Japan 100 years ago. I was excited to eat sushi because I feel like the weather has been too cold to eat it recently. 

 Before heading home on the last day, we went to spa area in Amori. There was a nice tearoom there where you could put your feet in a spa as you ate your lunch. It was so beautiful there and was a great way to end our Izu trip.