The Last Days of Summer

1 September 2003, 20:07

If someone approaches you while you are reclining on the beach, and asks if you would like lunch and cocktails served to your little possie on the sand, you are morally obliged to say “Are you f!@#$in’ kidding! HELL yeah!”. Choking down whoops of joy, we ordered rum coconut cocktails and bentos and at precisely 1pm, said refreshments arrived without us having to move a pinkie.

It was Saturday, we were at Shirahama Beach in Shimoda and as I sucked on my cocktail and basked in the banter of our friends, I mused that there are days when I love Japan beyond all levels of obscenity…..

Friday

Matt and I took the train down to Shimoda the afternoon before the rest of the gang. We stayed at our favourite little Minshuku, “Haji”, a no-frills labyrinth of tatami rooms located next to Sotoura Beach.

We spent the sunset on the beach and hiked up to the shrine on top of the cliff. The shrine is quite eerie; it looks deserted, the air is thick and filled with the deafening cries of cicadas and it is like a vortex where insects are 4 times as large as anything I’ve seen in Japan – huge spiders (OK, not an insect) and ants crawled over the shrine, and butterflies and dragonflies the size of small birds darted around the joint.

Saturday

5 minutes bus-ride from the minshuku is Shirahama Beach, where we set up early morning camp and waited for the Nicks (“Magic Nick” and “T-Nick”), Machiko, Yoshi and Yuriko to arrive.

We ordered our cocktails and bentos, swam in the crystal clear surf and spent the afternoon exploring the hidden coves and caves around Shirahama. You could practically see the tension of urban life floating off into the Pacific. 7 hours and 10 shades of sunburnt skin later, we packed up and headed to Yoshi’s company’s “cottage” south of Shimoda.

The “cottage” turned out to be a sprawling resort on Cape Tsumekizaki where Toshiba has one of the self-contained units. We cooked up a feast of yakiniku, grilled vegetables and rice and sank a sinkful of beer. I passed out at the ungodly hour of 10 pm, and the others weren’t too far behind.

Sunday

We found a hidden beach, Kujuham, not far from the resort, which was blissfully free of convenience stores, amenities and shrill megaphones begging beach-goers to buy ice cream or rent umbrellas. It had a toilet, some coin-operated showers and that was it.

Spent the day swimming in the sheltered waters, throwing the frisbee and snorkelling around the rocks. Its been years since I’ve snorkelled and I’d forgotten how much I’d loved it. “Magic Nick” had never been before and was in a ridiculous high all afternoon. It was truly amazing. You forget how much is going on under the water that you can’t see from the top. Shimoda is practically tropical waters, so it was like being in an aquarium. Definitely the highlight of the weekend.

Unfortunately, it had to end sometime, and at 3pm, the chimes of doom signaled time to trudge back to Shimoda station and back to Tokyo…

Permanent Link