02 : Ofuna Station, Kanagawa Prefecture
Shonan Monorail Station Trip

02-01: Foreword

02-02: Beginning at Ofuna Station

The first station on the Shonan Monorail train trip was Ofuna Station. Although I often use Ofuna Station for transfers, I had never taken a leisurely stroll through the town, so I was looking forward to it. After exiting the ticket gate, we first went down to the east exit of the station and went to the Nakamichi shopping street. The east side of the station is lined with small stores, and the shopping street is always full of energy. There are also store fronts, and as I wandered around, I was tempted to try this or that. And, for those who like public baths, we found a bathhouse called "Hibariyu" not far from the station. I tried my best to blow away the temptation of "Let's just relax here today," and managed to keep my wife from being sucked into the Hibariyu, so we decided to enjoy it next time. (Yes, the purpose of today's visit was to "walk around town. Sento (public bathhouses), which I haven't been going to since Corona, are very attractive, but as expected, I can't end up "getting off at the station, going straight to the sento, and ending up there immediately.") Well, as I was walking around, the time was already lunchtime. Now, what shall we do for lunch?" So, for lunch that day, we went to "Lai Pung," a Vietnamese restaurant that was my wife's selection. Opened in November 2021, Lai Pung serves pho, báinh mì, and Vietnamese-style mixed rice, etc. The light blue walls and wooden door frame of the restaurant's stylish interior, as well as the dancing man sign, made my heart dance. I ordered Vietnamese-style mixed rice, and my wife ordered Pho with Ezo venison. The rice mixture was beautifully colored, and I was very excited. I enjoyed mixing the various vegetables and meats a little at a time, enjoying the different flavors little by little, and finally mixing it all together in a gaga (my way). The pho is said to be delicious, with the flavor of the deer meat not being too strong. It was so delicious that I finished it before I had time to take a picture, but I vowed to come back and try it again next time. This is a restaurant with counter seating, so it is easy to come in alone. Normally, I would have said, "Well, let's go home" when I was full, but this time, there was still more to come. We were fired up and headed back to Ofuna Station to see the red train with the 50th anniversary headmark that we had designed. Yes, this is one of the objectives of this city tour. The logo for the 50th anniversary head mark was designed and awarded to us! A few months ago, I took the Shonan Monorail for the first time while looking for a place to live. I felt a strange connection with a poster I happened to find there, "Shonan Monorail 50th Anniversary Logo Wanted," and applied for the award. I was very happy to receive the award and feel as if I had been accepted by the town. More than anything, the encounter with the Shonan Monorail expanded my focus on Zushi, and I was very happy about that. After waiting for a while, a red car pulled into Ofuna Station. And when I looked at the head mark, I saw the 50th anniversary logo we designed. I was happy again! The 50th anniversary logo is always a joy to see. My wife, who always has a happy face, was standing next to me saying, "It's always fun to see the 50th anniversary logo," while I tried my best to capture the red car in the frame.

After I finished shooting the monorail, I saw Kannon-sama (Goddess of Mercy) while I was shooting the monorail. I thought to myself, "If you think of Ofuna, you think of Kannon, right? And we decided to go to Ofuna Kannon next. Surprisingly (?), Ofuna Kannon is only 5 minutes away from the station. It is easy to get to. Climb up the hill on the approach to the Kannon (don't miss the red cone with the Jizo statue sculpted on it at the entrance of the approach!) As I looked up the stairs, I saw the large face of Kannon peeking out at me from above. It was so powerful that I couldn't help but let out a "Oh!" It was my first experience to see only the face from the bottom of the stairs, which surprised me, but after climbing up, I was convinced that this is the way only the bust of Kannon can be seen. Unlike the Kannon in the distance seen from the train, up close, I found her face to be more friendly and gentle than I had expected. As we climbed the stairs, I felt as if I were about to be eaten by the Kannon," my wife said as we walked around behind the statue and entered the temple. When I was younger, I never read the explanatory signs, but recently I have started to read them more carefully. I am glad I came because I could learn about the history of Ofuna Kannon, including the many twists and turns it took over the years to create the statue. I also learned for the first time that there is a "Sentai-butsu," a Buddhist image of a thousand statues of Jizo statues that you can carve yourself. While gazing at the Kannon and the townscape of Ofuna from the hill, we decided to walk toward the west exit next. My wife said, "If I am going to walk around the town, I want to go to the bakery in the town! My wife wanted to visit a bakery, Bäckerei Sieben, on our way to the west exit of the city. We happened to find this bakery through a search, and this coincidence is one of the best parts of walking around town. (Beckerei Sieben is a bakery owned by the owner, who trained as a baker in Germany, and is popular for its "delicious bread dough.) And my wife was satisfied with the delicious bread. The west side is a quiet residential area unlike the lively east exit. It was just at the time when the western sun was beautiful. We walked along the street, talking in our usual way, saying things like, "There is a house shaped like this," or "There are a lot of hills near the mountains. We decided to walk in this town today, and it was a lot of fun walking together while talking about the town's appearance. Kanagawa Prefecture is well known for its many hills, and I thought it was the same here. Walking down the street, I thought to myself, "If I were to live here, I would need a car," or "I would need an electric bicycle," and I wondered if I was the only one who immediately started thinking about living here. Finally, I bought some spices I had never seen before on the first floor of the Granship building near the station, left Ofuna, returned to Zushi, and ended my walk with a toast at Senmantei in the Ginza shopping arcade. The last "tea for two" of the day was beer. The next "tea for two" will be in Fujimi-cho. This is the end of the Ofuna section for now, but there are still many places to see in Ofuna. I feel like I have finally made it to the beginning of getting to know the city. I like to take a quick tour of museums, so this is the kind of town tour I enjoyed, but I think it would be good to take more time to explore the city in the future. I am glad that I was able to have such a good opportunity to walk around an unfamiliar city. I am glad that I started this project.
To be continued

02-03: Fujimi-cho to Shonan Machiya

As we had no plans for May GW since the last visit to Ofuna, we decided to take the Shonan Monorail to Fujimimi-cho Station. The platform of Shonan Monorail Ofuna Station was filled with many parents and children enjoying the sunny weather and the GW weather. Soon after, the suspended monorail arrived at the platform as if it were gliding through the sky. It is an exciting sight no matter how many times I see it. We boarded the monorail thinking, "I am happy to live in Zushi, a place I have a special place in my heart, but I wish I could have lived along the Shonan Monorail line. The train was packed with families in no time. As soon as the monorail started moving, the interior of the train was as lively as an amusement park attraction, with comments such as "Oh, this thing rocks," "This is my first time riding the monorail," and "I can see the bottom. I was nodding my head in understanding as I listened to them talking. As I gazed at the train filled with colorful water bottles, straw hats, and backpacks, we arrived at the platform of Fujimimicho Station, the next stop after Ofuna Station, in no time. The Fujimimachi Station, where I got off the train for the first time, was very quiet and beautiful in light and shadow, unlike the bustling interior of the train earlier. And the unmanned ticket gate is fresh. We went around the yellow poles of the unmanned ticket gates and said to each other, "Shonan Fukasawa had unmanned ticket gates, too," and "Enoden had unmanned ticket gates, too. Is this a professional disease or just a hobby? Satisfied with our observations, we exited the ticket gate, and my wife seemed to have decided where to go first. She took me to Thomas Foods, which had a distinctive blue sign. We were looking for "Poripori-men" there. Direct name, nice package, kind mother. At first, we were debating whether we should go in or not, but we decided to go in and it was the right decision. After much deliberation, we decided to buy the Poripori Men and Ankake. For some reason, I am always nervous when I go to a restaurant for the first time. It is a different feeling from going into a convenience store, and it is similar to the feeling I had when I went to the grocery store on my own to run errands in the old days. After leaving Thomas Foods with great satisfaction, we next spotted a sign for a public bath. For some reason, public bathhouses are often seen near train stations in Kanagawa Prefecture. I said to my wife, "It's because it's near Mt. Fuji," or "Maybe it's just a place to go after work." Fuji," or "Maybe it's just a place to go after work. I like this time of free conversation, in a sense, without thinking about anything. Sometimes we get confused (often because we start talking as much as we want), but somehow this time is relaxing. We continue our stroll, and as we walk further into Fujimi-cho, being soothed by the azaleas in the park along the way, we notice that there are many apartments and condominiums around here. As in the previous conversation, I give my own reasons for my decision. I then look around at the buildings, thinking that I have a habit of thinking about "living" when I walk around the city. Next, I climbed the steep stairs to Kanagawa Gokoku Shrine (Kanagawa Gokoku Shrine), which offers a great view of the city. A careful reading of the signboard tells us that the shrine was founded by volunteers from the prefectural government. The iron pipe structure was very innovative. After paying our respects, we could see Ofuna Kannon (Goddess of Mercy) in the distance from the hilltop view. There are many hills in Kanagawa Prefecture. I felt like I was always walking on a hiking course. From there, we headed down a long flight of stairs to Kamakura Park. While stopping at shrines along the way, we almost got chased by bees, which made us both nervous. We wondered if the reason there are so many shrines in Kamakura is because there have been so many gods in this area for a long time. As we talked, we realized that we were quite far from the station. As we approached Kamakura Park, there was a peaceful stream, forests, and fields, and the air near the park was very nice. When we finally entered the park, it felt a little cooler. I took a short break while sitting on a bench. The fresh greenery was lush and a nice breeze was flowing. We both thought it was a nice park, but then we both thought to ourselves, "If we keep going this way, we'll grow roots," "I don't want to leave this park," "Shall we go next then?" We looked at the map and decided that we could walk to Kamakura from here. But, wait a minute, can't we walk to the next station, Shonan Machiya Station? So we decided to go to Shonan Machiya Station.

After passing through the park, we found ourselves in a residential area that had been rezoned. We headed toward the station, talking about how cool the park was and how the temperature would suddenly change at certain points in the town. My wife started to get excited, saying, "It would be great to take a picture of the monorail here," and "Let's wait until the monorail comes. Looking across the station, I saw a large Mitsubishi Electric factory. We decided to go to the "Kamakura New German Ofuna Workshop" near the factory as our next destination. This is a direct sales shop attached to the workshop, where you can buy some slightly damaged goods such as cake scraps and crusts of Kamakura custard with no cream in them at a slightly discounted price. We were excited to learn this information and were talking about what to choose when we arrived at the store. The restaurant was closed. Normally, you would first check if the restaurant is closed or not, but for some reason, we often check the destination but not the day it is closed. As usual, we exchanged a few "Too bad..." words with each other and decided that, well, this was all in good fun. It was well past noon and we wanted to have lunch at Shonan Machiya, but we couldn't find it because it was closed a lot (for some reason, once you can't find it, it is often closed, full, or after hours the next time). ) When this happens, we often talk about how many times we went there in the past. (We often talk about how many restaurants we went to in the past.) We ended up walking in circles and got so far away from the station that we decided to just walk to Ofuna station! We decided to walk all the way to Ofuna station! Again, a very haphazard trip. My next destination was Hosen-do Bakery along the Kashio River after crossing a big bridge. I was already hot and tired and wanted to go to the station in the shortest distance, but my wife said, "If you go to a bakery, you can understand the town. I was thinking that she just wanted to go there, but I decided to go along with her. My legs are tired, but the streets along the river are calm and breezy, and I walk along, thinking that it is a nice town. I watched my wife's straw hat almost blow off her head a few times before we arrived at our destination. The bakery, with the golden letters "Hosen-do" stamped on the building, looked spacious and old-fashioned inside. It is kind of very nice. My wife bought the peanut cream, which she said she had been curious about. (It comes in a Tupperware and the price is very reasonable. I spread it on bread and ate it. It was more refreshing than I expected, and it was so tasty that I could have eaten too much. I finally had a piece of bread with pork cutlet, which was so good that I wished I had bought another one. After a bit of a revival, we walked towards Ofuna station. I was somewhat relieved to know that Kannon would always be waiting for me when I lived here. We ended the tour with a cup of tea at Beckers Coffee in the station building. Walking around the city, I noticed the different colors of each town. The topography, the flow of air and chi, the forests and water, and the people. Somehow, I discovered that even though the distance is only a few kilometers, they are so different. Next time, I will visit Shonan Fukasawa Station, which is associated with the Shonan Monorail logo. I am looking forward to it.
To be continued