It’s been a busy couple of days here for the tour and part of it was on the road. Having got all comfy in our hotel, we packed up and headed for Kamakura, where we visited locations that featured in Aoi Hana / Sweet Blue Flowers. We had lunch in the cafe that was the basis for the one that Fumi and A-chan ate in, and where Fumi came out. 

We were supposed to have headed to Yoshiya Nobuko’s house, but due to unexpected (and at this point, inexplicable) circumstances, we were unable to do so. Not going to lie, we were all disappointed, but lunch helped. We then headed out to Enoshima, the site of many a day trip and date in dozens of anime.

Enoshima is a volcanic island which, according to local lore, rose out of the ocean, to allow the goddess Benzaiten to alight in order to face a dragon that was terrorizing the locals. There is a shrine on the island. Several, in fact, because that’s how things work.

The onsen resort we stayed in also had a shrine to Benzaiten in the cave hot springs, which was hot as blazes. The “roman” (i.e., Victorian) bath was easier to manage and very beautiful. 

Dinner was sumptuous, and almost killed us. This was the first course of five.

The view from my room. We’ve had pretty  cloudy weather, but aside from a few hot days when we arrived, its been nice.

Breakfast the next morning was lovely. I forgot to get a picture. Woops! But we did get try Enoshima’s specialty, whitebait. It was pretty great over rice, with some pickles. Honestly, that was one of my favorite things we ate.

When I say that it’s Enoshima’s specialty….I mean you can get it in a zillion ways. On burgers, raw, cooked, dried, fresh, on mochi, as crackers. etc…. Including as ice cream.

On the way back to Tokyo, we stopped at the Library of Literature in Kamakura, which was the inspiration for the design of Fujigaya girls’ school in Aoi Hana.

It was fantastic. The exhibit while we were there was honoring Kandono Eiko, creator of Majou no Takyuubin (魔女の宅急便), which we know as Kiki’s Flying Delivery Service. She is a prolific children’s author and was recently awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Award.

It was a delightful exhibit, in a beautiful location- well worth the visit!

With that, we headed back for something we were all looking forward to…a Halloween Tea at our hotel. ^_^ It looked so cute on the poster we just had to.

The expression on the ghosts was brilliantly apt, as they were delicious. ^_^

After the third too-large meal in a row, we needed a long walk, so we headed out to the Akasaka Hikawa Shrine, the shrine that is the inspiration for Rei’s shrine in Sailor Moon. The festival we expected hadn’t opened yet, and so we all blamed Rei’s grandfather, but we did catch up with the parade of the mikoshi.

Today we’ve got a full schedule, with a visit to Shinjuku, Nakano and we’re hoping to get back to Akasaka to see the festival.

More to come!