Day trip to Jogasaki Kaigan and Ito

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It takes about two hours each way from the Ginza area of Tokyo to get to this hike. If you have time, however, the whole area is renowned for its onsens (natural thermal baths), so it would be worth spending a night or two. It looked like the sort of area that would be incredibly busy during the Japanese week-long holidays; I can only judge it from my experience when it was pretty well empty.

From Tokyo, we took the Shakaido Shinkansen (Kodama- the faster trains don't stop at Atami) southeast to Atami and switched to the JR Ito line to continue to Jogasaki Kaigen (the JR line only continues for part of this, so if you have a rail pass you'll have to pay 500-600 yen when you get off in Atami, and then 680 to return from Izu Kogen). Some of the connections were a bit tricky, so it's best to ask around at each stop.

The idea was to walk along the coast between the Jogasaki Kaigen and Izu Kogen stops and then check out one of the many onsens in the area. The cliffside trail basically starts at one suspension bridge and ends at another (see photo of map).

Peggy and I both really enjoyed the walk. It was probably close to 10 km overall but the trail portion was about 6-7 km. We walked from the inland station to the starting point, which is about a km away and is in a pretty touristy park centered around a suspension bridge with nice views of the sea. But once we started on the trail, we saw fewer and fewer people, and the surface turned from pavement to dirt. In some sections it opens into a clearing / local park and then we had to look around a bit to find where the trail starts again, but it was generally uncomplicated. The trail doesn't seem to get much maintenance but it's very well constructed and there aren't any sketchy areas, even though it goes right along the cliff side.

There are plenty of viewpoints (and toilets / water / snack bars) along the way and though there were a lot of bugs and slightly overgrown areas, we didn't get any bites or itches (we did the walk in June).

Aside from the impressive views and interesting rock formations that have the illusion of being man-made, we also enjoyed watching the seaside feral cats and fishermen toward the end.

Toward the end of the walk- after the second suspension bridge- it's better to make an immediate right up the hill. We made the mistake of continuing on toward the port and had to walk a couple of extra km along roads to get to one of the onsens on the map, Kogen No Yu.

This was my first onsen experience, and the script really should have been saved for an episode of An Idiot Abroad. It's a lot of heat and deep self-scrubbing and very little modesty.

It's gender divided, and I was prepared to walk around naked (with a small wash rag, which I failed to procure at the reception) but then I got to the locker room where everyone strips down and found that it was empty, except for three old women, who were nonchalantly cleaning and who insisted that there was no need to wait. Ok- no problem, they're just old women who I'm sure have seen it all. Ok- one has to help me with the coin-operated locker as I stand there naked holding my clothes, but I really need somewhere to put my stuff. Escape to the scrubbing area, where I sat on a stool and poured buckets of water on my head and scrubbed in my Dr. Bronners.

A four or five-year-old girl promptly appeared, accompanied by her twelve-ish-year-old brother (we found later that the mom just wanted to be by herself in the female side). She then proceeded to follow me into the pool areas- from bath to bath- and to stare at me since I was the only white guy around. To be fair, I don't think this is common, and the other men seemed to be uncomfortable as well, but the Japanese are too polite to complain.

I found refuge in the sauna. Everybody except for me had a small washcloth to somewhat cover themselves. Oh well. It was at 92 degrees Celsius and of course I tried to stay in as long as all the locals (10 minutes?). I managed it but when I went back to the hot baths afterwards I felt really nervous and uncomfortable and was breathing hard. I attributed it to the naked little girl who had rediscovered me and was playing in the clay right next to me, but it probably was the heat, and I didn't explore too much longer to find the cold bath that likely would have brought my body temperature down. I suffered for a while and then got out early and went to the waiting area to relax and read.

My other experiences in both onsens and sentos (public city baths) were much more relaxing.

From there it was a short walk to the Izu station. We got back to Tokyo at around 8:30 so it was definitely a long day trip!

Peggy got the walk idea from the Japan Guide website: http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e6308.html

There are more photos below.

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Photos

Best viewpoint
We were there on a cloudy day, but it didn't rain and the walk and views still exceeded our expectations.

Onsen sign
For some reason this reminds me of a basic symbolic logic problem... All gangsters have tattoos; therefore are all people with tattoos gangsters?

On the Shinkansen
?????