Life’s a Beach
Sunday night… time to head to bed and prepare for the start of the work week. Except not! This week I took Monday off, because I have three days of summer vacation to take before September starts. I had already known for a few days I’d be taking the day off, and luckily I didn’t have to do much planning. Mentioning that I’d be using a vacation day at the bar prompted the manager to pull out a calendar and make sure he’d heard me right; they’d all be taking that day off too, and were going to the beach and he invited me along! Although I’m not a beach person I’m also not stupid, so I jumped at the chance to tour the area and get to know some locals. Monday morning I got picked up in the typical Japanese box-looking car and we headed for the sea. I had realized earlier that I’d be going to a beach on the Sea of Japan, rather than the Pacific Ocean proper, so the thought of experiencing a new body of water helped wipe any gripes about sand or wearing sunscreen away.
I’m not sure if it was just the group I was with or the fact it was a week day and 4,000 degrees outside but I found Japanese beach-going much more agreeable than our familiar counterpart. First off, the beach we went to is famous because you’re able to drive on part of it. I had heard of this beach at some time during the now fast deteriorating memory of PowerPoint presentations, pictures, and bullet points at orientation, but I didn’t realize that’s where we were going until we were pulling onto the street of sand just feet away from the water on the way to our eventual parking lot. We then spent a few hours at a seaside restaurant/hang out spot in the shade, similar to the bagno restaurant areas in Italy, trying various kinds of local seafood and chatting the day away. The beach itself was pretty sparsely populated but there were some people with the chairs, towels, and umbrella setup around. Again, not sure if I should attribute that to being a Monday or to the sand being so hot my feet still feel a bit cooked five days later. We did take a dip in the ocean, for a quick 15 or 20 minutes, and though everyone else commented on how nice and cold it was all I could think was how they might share some of my disdain if only they knew the depths of coldness one could feel at the other end of the Pacific.
An example of a turban shell, one of the local foods. You pull the meat out with a provided skewer. Should only be eaten by those who like a strong bitter taste (not me)