I start where I finished the latest post – the best thing about Fukuoka in the summer is family evenings on the beach. It has been a very hot July and beginning of August, the temperature and humidity during the day sometimes feeling unbearable, but come late afternoon and the world shows a very different face, especially so near the sea. With the temperature dropping, the breeze from the sea and feet in the water, it is difficult to imagine a more pleasant image of summer. Or maybe I should say pleasant and thrilling.
Going to the sea is never the same. Our favorite beach is just under half an hour’s drive from home and we never know what the sea will look like once we get there. We can get an idea of the sky, if it will be cloudy or clear, but even that becomes a guess sometimes since we live at the foot of a mountain and the weather here can be a bit different. The past week we made it to our beach twice, and the experience could not have been more different, and filled with unexpected surprises.
The first evening was like the poster image of summer. A beautiful sunset followed by a glowing sky, a calmish warm sea with no jellyfish, the beach almost to ourselves. Our son did not want to leave. We swam in the sea until the sun had made it past the horizon and when we were packing up our things we saw a wild boar come walking over the beach, poking its snout in the sand looking for something to eat. Not fancying a close call with a wild boar we silently made our way to the car to get changed. It almost got dark by the time we had rinsed off the sand and changed into dry clothes but by then the boar joined us. We jumped into the car and watched the wild boar walked past us, continuing into the scrubs. It was the first time for both my son and wife to see a boar so close up and while driving home we thanked the animal for helping to make this evening into a new and beautiful summer memory.
Next time we went to the beach, it was an overcast Sunday afternoon. The wind had been quite strong earlier in the week, no doubt a result of a typhoon passing Okinawa, but since the wind had calmed down we did not expect too much waves as we were heading to the beach. But arriving we saw that the waves were still violent and made the sea into a surfers paradise. We soon realized that there would be no swimming today, but as we had come all this way to get wet it seemed like this weather was a good chance to let our son experience the power of the waves in the safe embrace of his parents.
We spend the better part of an hour standing in the waters edge, feeling the waves come crashing in, seeing the surfers riding the waves further out, and hearing our son overjoyed from experiencing the waves. For me now, the only question is how long I will need to spend tomorrow trying to get the sand out of our swimwear – the sand seem to have found its way into every little corner of our clothes. I only hope I will be finished before it is time to go to the beach again.
