My friend Dana and I wanted to see something quiet, something with less of the hustle and bustle of Tokyo.  I fondly recalled the peaceful days of Sasebo, and how the people there were friendly, the towns quiet and mountains blocking parts of the sky as opposed to huge skyscrapers.

We found such solitude and beauty a few hours south of Tokyo on the Izu Peninsula.  We took a train past huge vistas of the open ocean, where the rocks marking the shores of Japan meet the crashing waves.  We only had a weekend, so we just took in the eastern and southern parts of the peninsula.  We visited the port city of Shimoda and the resort village Minami-Izu ("Southern Izu").