• Taxi Service from Izukyu-Shimoda Station
There is a taxi stand right out front of the station.
The fare is approximately 2000 yen and takes about 10 minutes.
All of the Shimoda taxi drivers know “wabi-sabi in Kisaneh”
• Bus Service from Izukyu-Shimoda Station
From Bus stop #3 and #4 there are between 2 to 5 buses an hour.
Get off at KISAMI and follow the sign to Ohama.
Follow the road for about 10 minutes, you will see a tunnel on your right across from Mellow Cafe. Go through the tunnel and turn left, at the end of the road you will see a dirt road on your left. Follow the dirt road over the little bridge and up the hill. wabi-sabi is the last building on your right.
Bus #2 departs at 15:45 everyday bound for Ohama Kaigan.Get off at the beach and walk back towards the main road (with the ocean on your right). Across from Mellow Cafe you will see a tunnel on your left. Go through the tunnel and follow the signs to Retreat wabi-sabi.
By car
approximately 3.5 hrs.
From Tokyo, take the Tomei Expressway about 30 minutes to the Atsugi Interchange and head towards Odawara on the Atsugi Highway. After about 30 minutes, you will reach Odawara. From Odawara, take the Manazuru Highway to Atami and then R135 to Ito (about an hour). From Ito, drive down R136 for about an hour to Shimoda. Stay on the 136 and drive through Shimoda Town, once about 5 minutes outside of town you will see a sign to Ohama. Turn left and go straight. After about 500 meters you will see Cafe Mellow on the left. Go through the tunnel on your right and follow the signs to Retreat wabi-sabi.
By Train
Izukyu-Shimoda station is the last stop on the Izukyu train line and Shimoda is as far south as you can go by train on the Izu Peninsula.
From Tokyo Station, Shinjuku Station, Ikebukuro Station: the Odoriko train makes a few runs daily via the JR Tokaido Main Line. A one-way trip takes about 2.5 hours and a costs ¥5890 one way. Holders of the national Japan Rail Pass will have to pay only ¥2070 each way to travel over the Izukyu Railway, but if you have a JR East Rail Pass, the entire journey is fully covered. Check here for the Odoriko Schedule.
In Ito any foreign passport holder (regardless of the visa) can purchase an Izu Rail Pass in Ito for ¥1200/1 day and ¥2000/2 day. Even just the one way trip to Izukyu-Shimoda Station will save you at least 400 yen.
If you want to save more money local trains take slightly longer but are quite a bit cheaper (¥3780). From Tokyo you can take the JR Tokaido line to Atami in about 100 minutes and costs 1890 yen. From Shinjuku you can take the Odakyu line to Odawara and transfer to the JR Tokaido Line there. The whole journey to Atami would take more than two hours but cost only 1250 yen.
From Atami you would have to change to the Izukyu line bound for Izukyu Shimoda.
You can check all train schedules here: HyperDia
For all your public transportation questions (schedules, prices, busses) I highly recommend calling the super helpful people at the JR East English Information Telephone Line:
(81) 50-2016-1603
