Let's go for a drive on the Peninsula!

Kore-wa watashi-no-blogu-desu. 
Yom de-kudasai! 

Well it was back home from Saipan and where can we go today? After the normal post holiday clean up and tea out on Saturday night, with a work colleague from home, we were ready to head off in the car. Luckily for us the weather was beautiful, not tropical like Saipan but clear and sunny. Clear enough to see our beautiful mountain but not hot enough to get sunburned again!!

We have visited the Izu Peninsula quite a few times and gave it the 'thumbs down'. When the next 'alien visitors' arrive we'll spend a couple of nights down there.......Mandy and Dave are the next victims! The Izu Peninsula is to our south west but directly to our south is the Miura Peninsula (三浦半島). Tokyo Bay is on the east and Sagami Bay on the west. Kamakura, once the capital of Japan, is at the top of this peninsula. Zushi, the place where we went to the beach party during Summer, is nearby. Its relatively close location to Tokyo means that in the Summer it attracts enormous crowds. It's a convenient and popular leisure spot for many water sports.... wind surfing, surfing, sailing, diving to name a few. The Miura Peninsula is much smaller than the Izu Peninsula and we easily drove around it in the day. Naturally many visits would be required to really see all that it has to offer.

We headed off using our own navigational skills, as we know 'Honey' often takes us out of town in a more convoluted way than is necessary. Unlike many other excursions we found the trip out of Yokohama very quiet and free of any traffic jams and we made excellent time....a very pleasant change!  As it was such a lovely day (i-i tenki desu) we had thought there would be the normal migration out of the city. Once clear of the more built up area we handed over the 'navigational reins' to 'Honey' and enjoyed the journey. The toll costs, 3650 yen ($46.00), for the day surprised us a little, even though they were down on our Narita trip costs of $60.00. Each time we get to a toll gate we have the normal game of charades to establish the cost. At some gates you take a ticket and hand it in as you exit and at others you pay a fixed amount at the start. The operators at each of the gates have worked out their own system for dealing with 'resident aliens' and 'tourists'.

Studying the map before we left we decided to make our way to Jogashima Island (pronounced Jo-gash-i-ma). Jogashima Island is off the south west corner of the peninsula and is reached via a bridge (only 150 yen for a return trip across).

The first place we stopped was Aburatsubo, situated along a beautiful coastline.

The Aburatsubo Marine Park is a popular place, where dolphins and seals amuse spectators with their wonderful performances, but we gave this a miss and went for a nice long walk down to the beach.

Some things never change, we are always on the lookout for yachts and marinas. There were lots of marinas, as obviously this is a very popular place for city folk to keep their boats. We  looked down upon this marina and then as we walked along the beach we found....

........this one in a 'pen' and thought maybe we should change 'Makira' for it??

Maybe not!!

Much of the peninsula is devoted to farming and no space is left idle. The main crop appeared to be white radishes and the fields were widespread and intense. The ground was bulging with these elongated vegetables which were obviously ready. The harvested radishes could be seen hanging in all kinds of places.

As we drove past one particular beach on the east coast, there were huge racks with hundreds of them hanging out to dry. I was unable to get a photo of them because we were in traffic. I  snapped some just hanging out in various places.


Wherever we went people were out walking, eating, buying, sitting on the water's edge drawing....

 or just lying around taking it easy!!

We had lunch in this little place on Jogashima Island. One of those places that spoke no English and had no pictures on the menu, so we just pointed and hoped for the best. We ended up with some type of ramen which was fine.

 As we were walking Steve couldn't resist a little snack, maybe the ramen wasn't filling enough!

 We walked to the end of the street....

and found a lighthouse.

Kannon-zaki Point, in the southern part of the Miura-hanto Peninsula and is well-known for Japan's first Western-style lighthouse that still watches over ships coming in and out of Tokyo Bay.

To date any forays along the beaches haven't produced any treasures so on the way back, at 5,000yen, I couldn't resist one of these......

Steve is always fascinated by the bikes we see on the roads....some are big, others are even bigger and then some are quite small....

We continued to meander around and explore. Driving back past Misaki Harbor, a very busy harbor that is especially good for tuna fishing, we were finally drawn back to the bright city lights. Returning to the expressways and traffic, we made our way home!

It was a very pleasant trip and pleasingly 'Himself' and 'Honey' didn't argue once. Well done!!

Things are improving!