Enoshima

Up without sleep on day three of my holiday, I opted for a trip to the seaside at Enoshima, a small island on the Shonan Coast of Kanagawa Prefecture.

The stations grew smaller and smaller the further we travelled, through Noborito and Sagami-Ono and finally Chogo, where I sat for the last stretch of the journey behind a driver in white gloves and matching face mask. He had the voice of a market trader and a disturbing tendency to point into space like a goalkeeper organising a defensive wall.

As we pulled into Katase-Enoshima there was a blue tiled building, a rust-covered Beetle, a row of bikes and a long walk to the exit that reminded me a little - but only a little - of Inverness. Outside was a red and green Chinese front, a concrete square and a bridge straight ahead, the sea shimmering on the other side of a row of palms. Hawks wheeled overhead. Across the bay, Fuji was masked to the snow cap in wisps of stratocumulus.