Shimoda, My Japanese 'Home Town', 6-18 to 20, 2013

I left Reiko's on the morning of the 18th and took the train west and then down the Izu Peninsula to my favorite place in all of Japan - Shimoda.  Shimoda is a tiny port town, surrounded by ocean and mountains.  It's where Commodore Perry and his black ships landed and 'opened' Japan to the world.  President Carter visited there 2 years after I left (I was an exchange student there for a year).  It's changed a little, some good, some bad, but it's still a cute little town with wonderful scenery.

I stayed with my host mother, who is still working 6 mornings a week at her medical clinic (she must be in her upper 70s at least). I met all of the nurses I knew - they are still working there, my host father's friends, and I saw my host father for what will surely be the last time.

I walked around town, found some of my old favorite - summer orange sherbet, and saw the incredible hydrangea on Shiroyama Mt. during the ajisai (hydrangea) festival.

The station area in Shimoda.

 

Izukyu Shimoda station.

 

Walking to my house.

 The little playground across the street from my house.

 

My house.

 

and the attached clinic.

After greeting everyone I took off for Shiroyama Park to see the hydrangea because rain was forecast for the following day, actually for that day too.  There are about 3,000,000 hydrangea in this mountain park.  It was unbelievable.  Each flower was about the size of an adults head.  Pink, blue, white, purple, all mixed together.  The deep blue was definitely my favorite but they were all so pretty.  And of course Shiroyama Park and especially the views from it are always spectacular.

There is a town program to beautify the place.  They are selling cheap flowers - petunias mostly it seems -
in hopes that people will buy them and put them outside.  It really does look nice.

Some new boutique stores.

 The next few pictures are of 'Perry Rd'.  This area used to be a run down and stinky (open sewers instead of this pretty canal) with some strange people.  I only ended up there once or twice - accidentally.  But now it's a very pleasant area.

 

 

My second day in Shimoda and no rain yet so I headed out for

another walk around town.  

 

Past the harbor and back into the hydrangea park - I couldn't resist. 

How often in life does one get to see this type of place?

Just unbelievable.  Every path you take, every turn you make...

Even the vending machine outside the park was decorated with hydrangea!

 

The sign on this bench says 'The energy giving seat'
so I sat.  And I was re-energized!

The equipment that is always available at temples. 
So that people can wash their loved ones, gravestones.

A giant clam shell.  See the 1 yen piece in the left bottom.  It's about the size of a nickel.

On the train going back to Tokyo.