Atami

This past weekend I went to Atami with a few friends (also ALTs). It is a seaside resort city on the northeastern part of the Izu Peninsula. My friends were spending the night there but I just went for the day since I live fairly close and didn't want to spend too much money.

First we headed to their hotel so they could drop off their bags. The area around the hotel was very nice. It was near the ocean. The picture above was taken around this area, across the street from the hotel. The area with the hotel is to the left and the ocean is to the right!

We were going to go to a geisha show, but they weren't having any more shows that day. Sad! :( So then we headed to find a place to eat. We ended up at a traditional Japanese restaurant where we had to take off our shoes and sit at tables on the floor.


There was so much food! I couldn't eat it all! I didn't really want to either... I don't like sashimi (raw meat) very much, but everything else was delicious! I especially loved the tempura (the fried stuff towards the middle of the picture). Each piece of tempura was different. There was fish, shrimp and many vegetables including a pepper, eggplant, and a slice of sweet potato. The sweet potato tempura was my favorite. :)

After a very filling meal (Onaka ippai! That means "I'm full!") we headed towards Atami Castle. We headed towards the area where the cable car takes you to the top of the hill with the castle. First we stopped to take some pictures. This was us attempting a "samurai" pose. We have no idea how samurai would really pose and this is definitely nothing like samurai.

Soon we boarded the cable car to take us to the top of the hill. I took a video on the way down and here it is: Cable Car



We went into the castle (pictures of the outside are on facebook) and looked around the museum and played with random toys. Finally we made it to the top of the castle... the view was great!

Atami was a really great place, but the weather was a bit cold and it was raining part of the time. I will definitely go back in the summer!

The rest of my pictures are here: Atami Photos