For those of you who don't know Atami, or have never heard of it, well I was like you 4 days ago. Apparently it's a really famous place, near Shizuoka. The sun beach (and moonlight beach) actually reminded me of something, I'm pretty sure I've seen/heard about it before... maybe in an Anime, on TV or in a book, but I'm sure I've seen it mentioned before. I just can't remember where.
So Atami is supposed to be a really famous place, but I think it's mostly famous with older people, as there was mostly only old people everywhere. It's really beautiful though. The beach at night is pretty, and they have fireworks during summer, but there was none when I went.
I stayed at the New Akao Hotel, a pretty nice hotel built on a cliff.
Our room was upgraded to a Royal Suite for some reasons, it was huge!
First thing we did after arriving, they were serving a "welcome drink" in the lobby, so we had green tea with a sweet. It was delicious.
After that we went to the Rose Garden (don't know why they called it rose garden, while there were some roses, it was not the majority of the garden that had roses).
It a huge and beautiful garden built into 4 sections (i think there used to be 5, but one of them seemed to be closed)
Above the garden, there was a little shrine. I love shrines. while I don't believe in anything, I love the view they provide.
The first section of the garden was a japanese garden. They said they they have the biggest Bonsai in the world.
Japanese garden always feels so relaxing. The sand represent the sea, and the pants/rocks represent the land (islands). The japanese garden was separated in two. Some kids were laying and actually went into the sand. Their parent were angry, but the staff of the garden laughed. it was kinda funny, but I understand why the mother was mad.
the second section was kind of a min maze, with flower arks and many little paths.
The third section was the Wedding and Propose garden, it felt really romantic.
The last garden was filled with flowers and had a lot of statues and a nice fountain.
There was also a monkey tamer performing at the top of this garden, it was interesting, but I only got to watch the end of the show.
After that we went to eat in the huge dinner hall. A band from New Zealand was playing while we ate a really Japanese meal. After the meal (which was actually so so) we went on a night tour of the city by bus. I was told by a friend that Atami had a really nice night view, so I looked foward to that. and it was as nice and they said. In the middle of the trip, the stopped at the Atami castle, so we could take some pictures. The castle itself was looking nice, but the view from it, to the city, and the beach, was just awesome.
After the bus trip we returned to the hotel, where we had a mini lesson of Motchitsuki (beating up the Mochi). Since I watched Tamako Market lately, it felt really interesting! we got to eat the mochi after that, and it was good. (sorry no pic of that)
After that we went to listen to a live acoustic performance by the same band that was playing at the dinner. I got to speak with the guitarist, Carlos, he was a pretty nice guy.
Unfortunately, they were not so popular, as we were the only ones attending this live performance.
After that we went back to the room, watched some tv. I went to the Open air bath at midnight (because I'm way too shy to go there when there's other people), and I can confirm, I don't like ofuro/onsen. It's way too hot for me.
The next morning, we ate breakfast at the same lace than we ate dinner, after that we went on a tour of the city. we stopped at an Old Inn, that is now just a place for tourist. It's a really impressive mix of western and eastern style.
After that we went to eat in an overpriced fancy restorant, The food was really good, but... way too expensive, I took the cheapest thing on the menu, and it was 1600yen or so, the normal stuff was around 5000 yen, while there were some up to 15000 yen.
After that we took a walk near the beach, watched the many monuments and went back to the hotel, picked up our stuff and went back to Tokyo, where we finished or day with karaoke.
One of the most famous statue in Atami is this one:
It's a guy kicking a girl... why? the story is actually pretty interesting! and you can read it here:
"You have been blinded by his diamond!"
That's all for this post.
These were only a couple of the pictures I took, and you can see the rest here: Atami
Thank you!
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