Izu

The weekend of August 2-3, Keith, Rumiko, Steph and I planned to head to Izu. For the guys, we live maybe 2 hours away from where we were going to meet, Atami. But the girls lived across the country. They had several options, Shinkansen, night bus, or local train, the last being the stupidest option since it takes a million hours and more transfers than I care to count.

The girls took the last option.

The initial plan sounded good on paper. They would get there at 3am, since that`s how the trains ran, and Keith and I would meet them at 9ish. So waking up at 6, I got everything ready, only to find my cellphone had a text that said the following:

We will be there at 10.

Well not exactly, but thats the gist of it. So after killing some more time, I grabbed my bike, rode down to Hon Atsugi, and just as I was going to buy my ticket, I get another text:

"Theres orcs and balrogs all over Hamamatsu, the trains have stopped, we don`t know when we`ll be able leave."



Rumiko sent me this photo of Steph fighting a balrog at Hamamatsu.

Now, if that was the reason, it`d be legit. Balrogs and Orcs are scary as hell. But truth be told, the trains were stopped because of rain.

Being in this perdicament, I rang Keith, and we decided we`d head to Atami first and just wait.



When we got there, we searched for some food, but decided to just go with coffee. After that we went to Atami beach to catch some rays and enjoy some water.





Around 12, Steph calls and reports she`s at Atami. We wait a bit and eventually see the girls. Seems as though they had an adventure of their own. But it was beach time, not story time.







That beach ball was fun for about 15 seconds. But with the wind and all, it kept flying out of bounds. I was long distanced X`d by the lifeguards while fetching it. After some swims, we were famished, time for food. We strolled back to Atami and picked a random place.





Please note the following:

I have no food
Weiner coffee is on the menu

With our stomachs filled, we decided to head to Shimoda, our main destination. We saw some good views on the way.







When we got there, we needed Ice Cream and a place to live. Somethings are more important than others.



There were actually two flavors, but by the time anyone took a picture, only matcha was left.

After getting ice cream, it was time to head to our Ryokan.









At the Ryokan, we all settled down, took a shower, then decided to get some dinner and decided what to do for the night...