Suma Beach

Before school started we took the kids to Suma Beach. It is just a small beach here in Kobe on the bay. There are a few beaches like that all within a short train ride. And while they are not the nicest beaches, they are a beach and a great place to people watch.

One thing I have learned in Japan is that anything goes –– including a beauty parlor on the beach.
No one sits in beach chairs here. It is all about these plastic tarps, which are many times blue colored. In fact, just about any outdoor activity you will see people sitting all around on these tarps. I am sure there is some official Japanese term for them, but being a newbie and all I am pretty clueless as to what it is.

I was quite surprised at just how many people were at the beach. You always hear that the Japanese people do not like sun. You would never know that with the mass quantity of people at the beach. Granted, many of the people over the age of 25 had on long sleeve swim shirts and suits. And as you can see, while it was very hot, it was quite cloudy so maybe that made more people come out.

We stuck out like sore thumbs in the sea of Asians, but it is funny as to just how many people came up to us and tried to "talk" to us. Especially the girls talking to Matt and Chris. The conversation almost always went like this:

Japanese Person: Where are you from?
Us: America
Japanese Person: Where in America?
Us: North Carolina
Japanese Person: Ahhh.. North Carolina
Us: Yes, but we now live in Japan... near Mikage.
Japanese Person: Total silence

I am guessing that they are taught in schools how to ask those basic questions and after that we throw them off. It is very cute and I love talking to them as much as we can.

It isn't much, but here is a brief video of the beach. Ignore the annoying commentary.