Kurihama

Today Eisley and I rode the train to Kurihama with two of our new friends. While walking toward our destination we stopped by Kurihamaten shrine. I love all the beautiful shrines in Japan. This particular shine is dedicated to Tenjin-sama the Shinto Kami (God) of scholarship, or education and wisdom. It is common for students to come pray here near exam time, and I read the shrine often holds a festival around this time. 

 We really enjoyed Kurihama flower park! There was an endless field of beautiful poppies mixed with other flowers. I am a huge flower lover, so I hope you can handle all the pictures :) The poppies bloom in May-June, and in the fall in October the field is overtaken by over 1,000,000 cosmos flowers. 

There is a whole field of Nemophila flowers (baby blue eyes)

The Koinobori (carp streamers) are put up in honor of the national holiday Children's Day on May 5th.

The huge poppy field, you can't see them from this far up, but this gives you an idea of the scale of the field.

Nothing goes better with beautiful flowers than an enormous statue of Godzilla. It is one of the biggest Godzilla statues in the world. In the original 1958 Version of the movie "Gojira" as our Japanese neighbors call him, came out of the water at the nearby Kannonzaki Beach. So we can say we saw Godzilla in his hometown. The best part is that there is a slide that runs down his tail that you can go on :) Behind Godzilla is a large roller slide park. You can buy little plastic sleds to make your ride more comfortable at a nearby stand for 400 yen.

Eisley acts like a little Godzilla whenever we play with blocks. No matter what she is doing she needs to knock down any towers you build. She seeks them out and destroys them. 

Eisley walking in the park :)

After the flower park we started walking towards Tomyodo Lighthouse, it was quite the hike, we walked along this beach and saw this massive mosaic along the way. 

Kurihama Beach

 After a very long hike we finally reached Tomyodo Lighthouse. It was very Japanese, I was surprised because I have such a western opinion of how a lighthouse should look.

THIS website has some additional information including some history on the lighthouse:  
"The original lighthouse was built in 1648. The light was visible from 7.2 km of distance. Since this original lighthouse was built, this lighthouse has lighted everyday, not even missing one day, for over 220 years. The original one has destroyed in Kanto Great earthquake 1923, and current one is rebuilt in 1988."

The lighthouse was lit using whale oil, and was the first "all night" lighthouse in Japan. It had a little rocky beach and tons of sea glass and worn little bits of beautiful blue and white porcelain. It was fun collecting some treasures to bring home and show David. 

Some of my sea glass finds

Map for Kurihamaten Shrine.
Map for Kurihama Flower Park
Map for Tomyodo Lighthouse.
Just as a fair warning, it is a very long walk! The lighthouse is about 30 minutes from both local train stations. The flower park is a much easier walk from the train station. All are free to visit with the train fare from Yokosukachou being 200 yen.