Ryan Amor

During Japan’s bubble economy- and I’ll be paraphrasing some random blog post here– Atami was once a popular destination for corporate retreats, sparking a construction boom of large hotels, ryokan and apartment blocks along its coastline. These developments make the seaside town appear much bigger than its population of around 31,000 suggests.

However, when Japan’s economic bubble burst in the early 1990s, corporate spending dried up and Atami’s popularity declined. Although it remains a weekend getaway for Tokyo residents, it has never fully regained its former glory, particularly with cheap flights making other destinations more accessible.

But we were there at the Japanese ungodly hour of just after 9am after taking the bullet train from Tokyo. We felt the slope the moment we stepped out of the station and wondered if the pork and rice onigiris we had in the train was enough. We found our way down to the promenade via a series of steep winding steps, wincing at the mental note of going back up the same way later. The plaza was deserted, the horizon a grumpy line of grey which reflected back on the line of of high-rises and hotels on the water-front. Nothing could be more depressing than a sea-side destination on an empty, chilly, over-cast day.

But this was what we wanted. Find an interesting enough, short Shinkansen destination that didn’t scream, visit me!

And here it was in all it’s supposed faded glory, just as it was waking up in that unhurried, unbothered way of dealing with life that I always aspired to.

Is it a mind-set? Or is it dictated by the kind of life you choose to live? Is it a combination of both?

We struggled to find ‘proper’ (eg.not from a Lawsons, a Family Mart or a 7-11) coffee. We passed by a small, sleek match-orientated cafe and realised that we hadn’t had matcha since we arrived. But it wouldn’t open until 10 so we walked around a bit and as it had been since Day 1, a bit became a kilometre which became two as we got distracted by this and that.

I had the matcha as a cold drink which I’ve never had and we went back out as if our feet were synced to Google Maps. We bought souvenirs- an ashtray, because when was the last time you’ve seen an ashtray?– and wandered around the back alleys of Atami Ginza. We had a tour of Kiunkaku, a private villa built by a shipping magnate with its chevron floors and mother-of-pearl inlaid walls and struggled to avoid bumping our heads on the really low doorways. The European-Japanese aesthetic was a manga series come to life. We checked out the supermarket and marvelled how a city that has less than 509 people per square kilometre could have this much food. The deli counter went on and on with millions of little things.

It was already lunch-hour, the onigiris burned off several kilometers ago, but again faced with so many choices, we were paralysed with indecision. We decided to go back to the main drag and just like that, we were met with a sizeable tourist horde, mostly locals, mostly young, mostly ignorant of what the weather was like and dressed as if the temperature was 28 when it was closer to 17.

We ordered beef bowls, ate leisurely at the beach promenade and decided to head back to Tokyo when Google told us that Atami’s main museum was a 48-minute walk which was nothing if it was on level ground, which it wasn’t (there’s Uber though, so one could use that).

Back up at the station, it felt like being back in the hub of Tokyo again with even more tourists dumped by tour buses- well, sayonara to that.

Till next time Atami..