A bicycle ride to the beach

On Sunday 5/20 we met up with our friends Olga, Valdis, Anton, Mami and Liam to bike down to the beach.  We had not been to the beach before, but we found a path near our house that leads to the beach.  It follows a small stream in a straight line, 12 km to the ocean.  The day was sunny and warm. When we got close to the beach there was a bit of a breeze.  The trail along the stream was exciting because there were two places where the trail totally disappeared and we had to walk around a flood gate.

Valdis had a good time.  He slept most of the way there in his bicycle seat.  Here you can see him playing with Mami.  He enjoyed running around on the beach.

I was surprised to find this TV sitting in the ocean.  Japan is usually very tidy, I was surprised to see so much trash at the beach.  There was quite a bit of plastic garbage in the stream too. Someone suggested to me that this TV may have been thrown away because it is not digital.  Japan recently switched over to all digital TV, and this has meant that many old TVs were thrown away.

The beach was a long party with BBQ, games, kids, ATVs and jet skis.  There is a definite beach subculture that is different from the people you meet in the city.

We found a fire that was left burning unattended.  We added more wood to get it really going.  I stood downwind for the photo so you can really get a sense of the smoke.  In the photo above we have from left to right Liam, Bre and Anton.

I sat too close to the fire and a big coal bounced off my jacket and burned through my pants.  Tragedy!  At least I was not burnt.

Bre took these photos of me drawing in the sand.

What do you think I wrote?


That's all for now,

-Kyle (and Bre)