beach day pics

Yesterday my labmate [eirI] and I rode our motorcycles over to [nijihsiN] to meet up with [eomoT] and some friends, we were headed to the beach at [onieM] hama. Sweated our asses in the sun getting there, but once we got on the beach there was a nice breeze.

Its actually an artificial beach created on the landfill in front of the [akuokuF] Tower. This beach is usually packed on weekend days, but since its Obon this weekend (the 'festival of the dead' holidays), not so many people.

Not too far from the Dome where the pro baseball team plays. The water was pretty warm, although hardly no waves since we're in a bay.

The guy on the right is [eirI], my labmate. he was rocking a super farmers tan, cause he had to work outdoors last weekend. Thats [eomoT]'s posterior and Akiko pumping up the floatation device.

Luckily there are a few of these tents placed along the beach to let you stay out of the intense sun.

In the back you can see a little beachside hut thing, it was a small restaurant. I walked by on my way to the showers later on, and was surprised to be greeted by Megumi, who i haven't seen in a few months. Apparently her relative or something works there so she was hanging out helping. (another case of randomly bumping into people in this not-so-big city).

There we are. who is the whitest of all? (hint, same guy who is the hairiest?)

The girl 2nd to the right, making the incredibly horrible face ruined a few pictures i took of the girls.

There's a little pier w/ restaurants, shops and even a wedding chapel. Every few hours the bell would ring (hypothetically meaning someone got married).

Of course a nice sunset shot or two just for Lumberjack.

And then it was time for Hanabi.

All up and down the beach there were groups of people who stayed after sunset to set off fireworks. most of which were just sparklers and lame stuff, a few had roman candles and other cooler ones. generally it seems like Japanese fireworks are less into making a lot of noise and blowing things up than American or Chinese fireworks. :-P

There were security guards who kept riding up and down the beach, easily visible w/their flashing light vests who didn't do anything despite fireworks being prohibited on the beach.

I got two nice night time shots of the tower. Thats the moon behind it from the water side, and from the land side they have a design on there right now. Its apparently the japanese version of the Milky Way.

And what were we greeted with when we left? a solid stream of SMAP FANS! apparently there's a four night show at the Dome by super-boy-band Smap. Actually when we went downtown later on we could still see tons of people (almost all women) walking around w/ Smap shirts and bags.

Anyway, I gotta head out soon. I got some pictures from the clubbing we did after that and I wanted to write up the conversation i had w/ a few of the guys i met at the beach about video game consoles. Turns out one of the guys who joined us later on works for Nintendo at their HQ in kyoto. Stay Tuned.