Outside of Miyagi

On Saturday, the Taiwa clan and a new Sendai ALT named Huong took a road trip to a beach party in Fukushima, the prefecture south of Miyagi. We were unsure about making the trip because the weather in Miyagi on Saturday morning was gray and rainy and altogether not nice beach weather. However, we decided to risk it and we drove south for several hours to get to this beach.

It was fairly cloudy and the weather finally cooled down to the point where it was comfortable to be outside. At the beach there were tents with beer and food, people playing volleyball, cooking out, and swimming. We hung out with some folks we knew and met some foreigners (mostly JETs) from other prefectures. It was a good, practical lesson in Japanese geography because I met people from Fukishima, from Ibaraki, which is directly south of Fukishima, and from Yamagata, which is west of Miyagi. I did not know any of these place names before yesterday. Spent part of the afternoon playing volleyball with random people swapping in and out on both sides.

We took a walk past all the tents selling booze and food. At one were scantily-clad girls selling Smirnoff Ice along with a drunk guy who may or may not have been working. Jenny decided she really wanted the little prize that they were giving away if you buy a drink, but told the guy that she wasn't drinking. We wandered away from that tent and a minute later I was standing with the 2 guys I had come with when the drunk guy comes up to me and says that 'we need to corroborate' and that he'll get fired if I don't buy a drink. So he pulls out his wallet and hands me 1000 yen (approximately $10) to buy drinks. We all went back to the tent, I bought 2 drinks and we went on our way. Jenny got her toy and I got one too (it was a little flashlight thing). Random, but if somebody wants to give me money to buy myself a drink I guess I'll take it.

When it got dark, a crowd gathered in front of a tent with a stage and a DJ spinning. Turned into a very fun dance party. People got up on stage, dancing and jumping up and down. At some point, tons of the foreigners got up on the stage. Unfortunately, they cut the music insanely early (10 pm!). So then we had to chill out the rest of the night.

A couple hours later, I took a nap on the beach, but all my body heat was being conducted into the sand and after an hour of being really cold I gave up and got up. Ran into Nathan and Huong who started asking me where Jenny was. Apparently they hadn't noticed that I announced an hour beforehand that I was going to sleep. After we found Jenny sleeping in her car, I settled on a park bench to take another nap. It was much warmer than the sand.

Around 3 am I woke up with a second wind and started wandering the beach again. I hung out with some kiwis and Japanese who were sort of dancing to crappy music from a CD player. After hanging out with them a while, I decided to make friends with a group who had a fire going. So I stood in front of the fire and warmed up, wandered the beach again, and then the Taiwa clan was ready to leave.

All in all, a good time was had by all. Nothing was spoiled by rain. The only disappointing part was that we left about 30 minutes before the sunrise and I wanted to stay and watch it, but c'est la vie. Sometime after I get my own car, I'll drive to the beach to watch the sunrise.