Hitachi Seaside

I went to Hitachi Seaside today! 

That was neither my idea nor my planing, but thanks to Michi I got in any way. We were a lot of people that went, and I had soo many interactions with all of them. All in all it was a really nice group and we got an well! I am just tired socially now.

The morning went like this (thanks Fede for planning it! I was so free to copy it to here, so people can do it too;))

-6:30 Leaving my House and getting on the Bus at Gokokuji ¥210

-7:06 Bus arrives and a 10 min walk to the Station

-7:27 Transfer to Nippori JOBAN LINE - LOCAL KATSUTA (it should be on Platform 4)

-9:48 We arrive in Katsuta Station

-10:00 and get on one of the local buses (they leave every 15 min) (direction 勝田駅前～海浜公園南口)

-10:16 Arrive at the Park

This cost me around ¥2500 one way. We took this train, because we had time. We are all living here and the Shinkansen is more expensive - at least that's what I was told. Don't be fooled. I didn't plan any of this. Grüße gehen raus.

Now on goes the food...

I didn't prepare any food. Because I got used to having the コンビニ。The コンビニ　opens at 7 though soooo, well shit

But I saw a bakery on the way!

There I saw this guy blow torch this eggplant thingy. So of course I got some:

...got some more...

....and a sweet treat....

¥900 in total.

On the train:

I was sitting across a Japanese man who started talking to me?!

But that got really wholesome. We (mostly I) did talk about food. And he told me he lived in Germany for 2 years. He recommended me food (akindo-suchiro.co.jp - Sushi places that are around ¥2000 and ootoya.com - to get traditional japanese food). Honestly that was so nice. We talked for probably half an hour. Then he left for his station. I didn't even get his name and he didn't get mine, but I think we still had a nice time:D

Next to me Vika was sitting. She is a Ukranian girl living in Japan for the last 3 years. And with her I talked the rest of the time. She recommended me a lot of places to go to that are not cities (Say thank you Tobi!) and I talked to her about diving, extreme sports and food and japanes and...

You get the point. She is really nice and I talked a lot to her on this trip. She's also really good in Japanese. (Even though she downplays that)

Arriving

At the station it was the first time I got a stamp! At every Station you can go, there is actually a stamp. That's one more thing to love about the public transportation here!

The daypass bus to there was ¥500. And the entrance fee ¥800.

I found a dog to pet :)

Lots of flowers:

And lots of people too!

So that was a snack right? 

Then we went to some more flowers. Honestly, these flowers were my favorite. They are such a pretty color, and it was so much more extensive, than these pictures can tell you.

They bloom end of April and beginning of May:

We saw some people take wedding and cosplay pictures there! Such a beautiful scenery. Buuut I got hungry:

All over the place there were food trucks. But HERE there were only TWO. One sweet ice cream shop and this. And I was hungry😭

So the fried rice sticks were pretty basic (least favorite) but the chicken was really juicy still and well done!

You probably have heard of my okunomiyaki cooking course. Well, we didn't only do okunomiyaki there. We also did this: Takoyaki! Never had it since because as you can see you need a special form for it. I also tried with shrimps back in Germany. Here it was squid. Honestly, I like the Shrimp one better :|. But it was still good!

So this is really soft inside. If it's done right at least. And they were done right.

That is the first time I saw Taiyaki beeing made! So yeah sure:

They were out of custard cream, so I got sweet potato. I am not that big of a fan:/

Then I got my first real souvenir: Flowerseeds! ¥650

(Well Fredericka did, thank you!)

By this point I got exhausted. But we still got the tulips. There were so many different varieties, look:

RETURN
For the return rather than give a fixed schedule I'll just give you the timestamps for the train going back from Katsuta to Tokyo
REMEMBER: this are the time from Katsuta Station, you need to consider the 15 minutes bus from Hitachi Seaside Park

- 16:00 JOBAN LINE - LOCAL UENO (You can either get off at Ueno or at Nippori, the stop before and from there you are inside Tokyo)

- 16:58 JOBAN LINE - LOCAL UENO

-17:52 JOBAN LINE - LOCAL SHINAGAWA (Again once you are inside Tokyo, you can choose the option you prefer to get back)

-18:08 JOBAN LINE - LOCAL SHINAGAWA

--------

We missed the train that leaves at 16.58 by 5 minutes. So we had to wait around a bit. But we got on the train at 17.52 and could thankfully sit. We arrived at Nippori Station at 19.57 I think.

On the train ride, I used Ana Marijas head as a pillow. That worked surprisingly well! After I felt like I got some sleep and was fine the last hour! So thanks Ana Marija:)

While they took the Yamanoto line to shibuya I left at Mejiro. There I found some wild soup dumpling shop:

And then got on the bus, where unintentionally cut in line. Didn't have enough money left on my suica card and somebody told me that I cut in line. That was embarrassing. But I survived. Thank you ¥210

Good night!

Money spent: ¥11430 ~ 70€