The question of when I last went swimming came up in a lesson back in early August and for the life of me I really could not remember * as it had been so long. That’s a different story now after I took a recent dip in the sea at one of Kanagawa Prefecture’s finest beaches.

Shōnan is a glorious coastal area close enough to Tokyo to allow for a relatively easy day trip from the capital. Having disembarked at Kamakura station I walked west on a different mission but as it was a scorching hot Summer day I couldn’t resist taking a slight detour to Kamakura Yuigahama Beach to cool off for a bit. I know hot spring baths have such rules about tatoos but I wasn’t expecting to see such this sign (below) on a beach. These rules are surely outdated now in modern society!

There were plenty of revellers on the spacious beach and the water was much warmer than I was ever expecting. Sadly there was a slight wind which did ruin things a bit when sitting on the beach as the sand just blows on to you and sticks to the sunscreen on your body!

The funny thing is that it probably took me longer to go and change in and out of my swimming shorts than the time I was actually in the sea! Still, it was worth it and it may well have been over a decade since I last went into the sea.

That was all in the morning and then a few hours later I was about seven kilometres further along the coast in Enoshima which is a place I had not been for 13 years.

Another sign caught my attention but this time it was one saying to beware of birds which I remembered from a previous visit. I didn’t really take it too seriously back then and consequently I had a bird swoop down and steal some food from my hand!

Koshigoe Beach (below) always looks pretty cool with the island of Enoshima looming large in the background. This time I just took a short walk along the beach.

I wasn’t really planning to go over to the island but as I was so close I thought I might as well walk over Enoshima Benten Bridge to take a look.

The highlight of my short time in Enoshima was a place called Shonan Denim Street Enoshima which is actually a clothing shop but it also sells very popular blue denim-coloured goods.

Such delicacies really are designed for the Instagram generation as almost every single customer (including myself of course!) only buys one of the products in order to post it on the internet in some form.

I really was quite surprised that I’d never seen or heard of this place on social media or YouTube. As the queues weren’t so long I decided to sample a blue steamed bun which was pretty good but nothing better than your average convenience store buns which are sold at a much cheaper price! There was also a blue ice cream I was intrigued by but that would’ve melted faster than I could’ve eaten it!

The main sloping touristy street of Benten Nakamise Dori is just full of food vendors and souvenir shops eventually leads to Enoshima Shrine.

There are a fair few other interesting things to see and do in Enoshima but that was it for me as I still had a couple of other things to do in the area. It was lovely to experience Enoshima again and hopefully it won’t be another 13 years before I return!

* Subsequent research tells me that the last time I went in to the ocean may well have been in Jordan in 2011 when I went to both the Red Sea and the Dead Sea. 

Click here to read ‘Tokyo Daytripper: Life’s A Beach At Enoshima’

Click here to read ‘Tokyo Daytripper: Monkey-ing About On Sarushima’

Click here to read ‘Tokyo Daytripper: The “Other” Big Buddha In Kanagawa Prefecture’

Click here to read ‘Tokyo Daytripper: Gojira-Koen (Godzilla Park)’