......continued

At this point in the day it was around 2:30pm. We didn't want to go home, so we decided to go check out Wakayama. I had heard that this area has quite a few beaches and many students go there to relax. We got to the train station and bought our ticket. We had no idea when the next train came, so Jame asked and it was at 3:30pm. We had 1 hour to kill, so we walked around the town and became bored quickly. There was nothing around except a good ol' Circle K. We got some ice-cream and went back to the station to wait.

The train was pretty empty, but not for long. At the next stop tons of students packed the car. It was so crowded and I was glad we had a place to sit. Many students raced to find vacant seat, while the not so lucky one's grabbed a spot on the floor. The interesting thing here is that every single kid, teenager, adult has a cell phone—sometimes even two. They don't talk on the phone because in Japan that is too expensive, so what do they do? Text, text, text! That is all I ever see people do. At times I think it is pretty impersonal. I was at Seattle's Best and two business men were sitting beside me. Were they talking? Nope, they both had out their phones and were texting. Same thing with two girls at another café, no chit chat-- just text, text, text. Weird!

After about a 1 hour train ride we arrived at the Wakayama train station. For some reason, Wakayama was nothing like I had imagined. I thought it was a small beach town, but in reality it was a decent sized city. We found at a map because we had come all this way to see a beach and wanted to see some water and sand! There were a few on the map, so we chose one and hopped on yet another train with our fingers crossed. This train ride lasted about 20 minutes and dropped us off what felt like the middle of nowhere. We got off the train and it was soooooooooooooooooo quiet. You could hear the waves of the ocean. The beach was a hop, skip, and a jump from the station and just as we set foot on the sand the sun was just about set. It was so relaxing, especially after our long day!

At about 6:30 we decided to head home. When we got to the train station we asked the worker when the next train was. He held up 3 fingers and we thought 3 hours. Thankfully he meant 3 minutes because had it been hours we would have been bored out of our tree. There was nothing around except a few houses, the station and the beach.

On the train ride home we were thinking of what to eat for dinner. We were hungry, wanted to do something, so we both thought of Tins. We hoped to get there at a decent time because it was acoustic night and we wanted to be sure to get a seat. Once we got there we saw some fellow Nova teachers, but no one we knew that well. The music sucked and was putting us to sleep. I was just about to text our friends to tell them we were bailing, but just as I was about to our friends Luke, Ryan and Tamara walked in. We grabbed a couple more beers and chatted it up for the next couple of hours. Good times!

All in all it was a LONG day, but a good one! All the treats of home—mountains, the ocean, and beer!!

P.S. - We have already been here one month today!! Does it seem like that long? I think it's flown by!

To view all of the photos we took on this day, please click here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33808451@N00/sets/72157594296025150/

September 23, 2006