Posts Tagged Jogasaki

My Dive Guides in Izu

Sat, Apr 18th, 2009  |   People, Places, Adventures 1 Comment

Hard-working, keen-eyed dive guides are a big part of having a successful trip…anywhere you visit.

In Izu for the past week, I’ve had the good fortune of working with two excellent guides…Satoshi Shinohara and Issei Takeda…from Sea Front dive shop. Here’s Satoshi with a big grin on his face:

satoshi

They’ve been helping me find things, lug things around, clean things off, and also just shuttling me around from site to site.

All of our dives have been shore dives, so there’s quite a bit of preparation time involved, and there’s plenty of work to do after we get back to the dive shop too.

So as my way of saying thanks…I forced them to pose for photos. The shop is located on the way to one of the primary dive sites, so many of their friends from other dive shops slowed down to watch me taking photos of my extremely self-conscious models. Embarrassing Satoshi and Issei in front of their friends was almost as much fun as finding a lumpsucker for the first time!

Here’s a photo of both of the strapping young lads together. It took me a while to convince them to stand close enough to one another to fit them both in the frame…

dive guides

Secret Soba

Fri, Apr 17th, 2009  |   Food 2 Comments

entranceAn integral part of the pleasure of travelling in Japan is the food.

Izu, for example, is famous for fresh seafood, as fishing is one of the primary pillars of the regional economy and society. Fresh fish and other marine products are available each day, which means awesome sashimi, sushi and other traditional Japanese seafood dishes.

Perhaps less well-known outside the country is the long-standing noodle tradition in Japan.

You may have heard of soba noodles, which are made out of buckwheat, and you might have even had some.

But store-bought dried soba (or even worse, the sad soggy stuff they serve on some airlines) is to the real stuff what pre-packaged, mass-produced white bread is to piping-hot, fresh-from-the-oven French bread.

Not to be a culinary snob, but there’s just no comparison to the real thing.

Here in Izu, Shinohara-san took me to a well-kept secret…a soba place that’s tucked away in a residential neighborhood, inside a normal house. The family who lives there serves lunch five days a week…and the soba noodles are out-of-this-world delicious.

soba noodles

Even better, it’s inexpensive. For somewhere between 800 and 1000 Yen, depending on what you order, you get fresh soba plus side dishes…more than enough to satisfy even big eaters like me.

The best part though, is that the restaurant is completely off the tourist map, which means there are usually people there but it’s never swamped, the food is always terrific, and the people there remember you.

In Izu

Sun, Apr 12th, 2009  |   Places, Adventures No Comments

Woke up really early for the drive to Izu. I expected a lot of traffic, since it’s spring and Sunday, but as it turned out, there wasn’t much at all.

The weather looked a bit iffy in the morning…grey and overcast…so that may have had something to do with it. Or more likely, everyone else was still asleep.

By the time late morning rolled around, the sky had cleared, and there were more people out and about, especially in the tourist areas.

bridgeThough I tend to avoid tourist places, we stopped off at a suspension bridge in Jogasaki, known as the tsuribashi (城ヶ崎吊橋), which is a “must do” for domestic tourists who visit the eastern side of the Izu Peninsula, as well as for visitors from other countries travelling on packaged tours.

(Actually…the main reason we stopped was to use the bathroom. There’s a nice public bathroom here, but they’ve started charging 500 Yen for parking, so I’m going to have find somewhere else to make pit stops.)

It seems like everyone who visits the bridge has to pose for group photos, a process that’s pretty entertaining to watch if you’re not actually in a hurry to get to the other side of the bridge.

The reason this place is popular (other than the toilet) is the nice view from the bridge and surrounding cliffs, which overlook the Pacific Ocean.

During public holidays and other peak times, visiting this area isn’t such a great idea, unless you happen to fancy the prospect of being overwhelmed by hordes of camera-toting tourists.

Today wasn’t too bad, as there weren’t all that many people around. But after taking a few obligatory snapshots of other people taking obligatory snapshots…we wandered off the path and sat on some rocks overlooking the ocean to enjoy a few homemade onigiri and some green tea for lunch.

onigir