3 May 2010

Emily was more excited about my birthday than I was (probably because there is a Peppa Pig episode about Mummy Pig's birthday). The day began with tears as Nick was showing her some video clips of Godzilla on the PC, and there was one where an airport control tower (another of her little obsessions) got knocked down, which had her in floods. Before we went out for the day I had a nice delivery: a bouquet from Nick.

We joined the throngs of public holiday daytrippers on the packed train to Kamakura, and upon arrival we decided not to try to cram onto the dinky little Enoden train and walked instead for half an hour to Hase. By the time we got there we thought we had better have lunch straight away before the restaurant got too busy. We ate at the usual waffle place. After a decent repast we crossed to Hasedera temple. In the six weeks since we went with Mum and Toshiko all the trees had come out into leaf and there were flowers everywhere: peonies (with their sunshades), jasmine, wisteria, irises.

The maples around the large pool were particularly attractive.

It was incredibly busy but we spent a while pottering around before getting fed up with the hordes.

Stopping by the modern Jizo (guardian god of children) statue which Emily really likes, she was immediately surrounded by a swarm of people wanting to take her photo with it. She spent a couple of minutes posing very knowingly before we dragged her away from her audience.

The relative seclusion of Inamuragaseki beach meant a further 20 minute walk away, so back into the buggy went a resistant Emily. As soon as we got to the road running along the shoreline the wind hit us. Though coming from the south, it was a good 30mph or more so it felt pretty cool. Once at the beach Emily was happy again, though by now weary.

She had lots of fun playing on the black sand. We made a pair of little sand people, and scavenged for interesting plastic flotsam to decorate them with.

Nick braved the cold water and wind chill to hit the surf, but Emily and I settled for paddling.

The trip home was difficult as we had planned to use the Enoden to get back to Kamakura and the main line, but when the little train pulled in it was so full we could not possibly have squeezed on even without the buggy. We had an hour's walk back along busy roads and pavements all the way to the station, and then had to employ elbows to get onto the Green Car back to Shinagawa. Emily had unsurprisingly fallen asleep on the long walk and then stayed asleep with me holding her until we were halfway back to town. We bought a fancy chocolate birthday cake on the way home and she was very keen to blow out my candle for me.