After spending a couple of nights in Hakone it was time to move to our next destination – the Izu Peninsula. We chose the location as we did not want to return to Tokyo and thought it would be good to go somewhere a little different. We had done some google research and had seen there were lots of waterfalls and we had a hire car so travelling was easy.

We left our Airbnb at 10am but could not check into our hotel until 4pm. It was only a one hour drive so we found some little places to stop on route.

Mishima Skywalk

Our first stop of the day was the Mishima Skywalk – the longest suspension footbridge in Japan. It was supposed to give views of Mount Fuji but it was too cloudy. However as we had been treated to some stunning views of Fuji over the last couple of days we were not too disappointed.

We paid to cross the bridge and on the other side were some shops, activities and a little owl enclosure. Tom & Izzy wanted to see the owls so we paid to enter and walked round. There were also some little hedgehogs and gerbils.

^{Inside the owl enclosure.}

We didn’t stay long and headed to our next destination, Rakujuen Park.

Rakujuen Park

Rakujuen Park is a Japanese Garden and Zoo in Mishima. We visited as we thought it would be nice to explore the gardens – although within 15 minutes of arriving the rain came down. We were not surprised by the weather as we were visiting in rainy season and so far in the ten days we had been in Japan it had only rained twice. We decided to carry on wandering around but when we reached the zoo the animals did not want to come out of their enclosures!

^{Rakujuen Park}

^{The animals staying well out of the rain!}

Shuzenji Onsen

Our final stop of the day was Shuzenji Onsen – one of the oldest and most famous hot spring resort towns on the Izu Peninsula. We knew we had picked a good place to visit as there were lots of tourist coaches and the sun came out again! We began by visiting the temple.

^{Shuzenji Temple}

We also wandered along the river and walked along the bamboo forest path.

^{River walk}

^{Gardens and bamboo.}

We then found an ice cream shop selling wasabi flavoured ice cream. We hadn’t realised that the area was famous for wasabi so we had to try some!

At this point it was almost time to check into our hotel so we headed off. We really enjoyed our afternoon in Shuzenji Onsen. We arrived at our hotel – Izu Marriot – and it was lovely. I had booked us all rooms with private onsens.

^{Stu and my room at the Marriot.}

We didn’t fancy eating at the hotel restaurant and it was really expensive so we popped out to a supermarket to pick up some snacks and when we returned we had the most gorgeous sunset views of Mount Fuji.

^{Mount Fuji from the Marriot Izu}