Cabbage Patch Kid.

The best trips are often the ones that are spontaneous and made without expectations. My friend James, who is a [1st-author-Nature-published] Neuroscience researcher studying memory, recently told me that our greatest memories are often from things that are spontaneous, so you better believe it (he didn't get into the details though, so I can't do so either and you'll just have to do your own googling). A friend of mine here who is a fellow Minnesotan but has been living in Japan quite a while now, was telling me this weekend about his travels throughout Japan when he first moved here and how great it was to be surprised by the places he traveled to without making any real itinerary (anecdote proves the theory).

On Saturday, I had plans to go on a hike on Nokogiriyama ("Saw Mountain" in English) with an Outdoor Club.  Instead I woke up two hours late having sleepily ignored my alarm clock, and when I fully reached consciousness, decided to plan my own hike. I looked through my Day Walks Near Tokyo book that I inherited from my Aunt Linda and chose a route on Cape Tsurugi, about an hour and 45 minutes from my house, in Kanagawa prefecture on the Miura peninsula. On the way there, on the luxurious Keikyu Kurihama line train with all forward facing individual seats, I leisurely studied some Japanese from my Minna no Nihongo book (I swear I don't work for Amazon, I just don't want to take pictures of these things). The views on the ride there are quite beautiful as the sakura are now near full bloom and the train line runs by the ocean.

The problem with having a walking guidebook from 1993 is that a lot can happen in two decades...
So I couldn't find the true path the book was supposed to be leading me on to see 'spectacular crashing waves on the rocks by the lighthouse' (paraphrasing here), so after going back and forth twice I branched off and instead found ENDLESS CABBAGE PATCHES!
It was pretty exciting.

I don't actually know what these are.

Kinda looks like a country's outline right?

Inside the cave I found.

An outdoor playground that someone left for me knowing that I can't boulder for shit.

Bridge to nowhere...

Unfortunately my jumping skills have not reached video game level, so I had to turn around and find another route here.

Blue stone pathway

SO MANY CABBAGES.

SO organized.

In case you're not excited enough yet.

This would have been helpful if I could read Japanese.