Beach Culture

Recently my friends and I made a plan to go to the beach.
I was excited and nervous at the same time. In the process of preparing to go to the beach, I found myself asking around what do people normally do when they go to the beach.


Going to the beach has been a big deal for me. I grew up in a prefecture that is well known to NOT have any coast in Japan. The times I have been to the beach was when I was young and on a family holiday or with friends when I was at university.

The beach was something that I always imagined before I went to sleep to calm myself down. I secretly like the beach as much as my bedroom floor was yellow and my ceiling was blue like the sky.  I love the sea breeze which makes you feel that you are free from all of the bad things and I love seeing the sun setting or it rising in the horizon. It felt romantic even for a 16 year old girl. The beach was somewhere special for me.

For my friends here in Australia, I think it is not be that special to go to the beach that it is for me. It is something that is just normal and casual, a thing that people do daily. "Let's go to the beach" is almost equivalent to saying "let's go the cinemas" or even "let's go out for a coffee". They have that geological accessibility to be able to have it in their normal day to day life.  

I think it is just the difference of growing up closer or far way from the beach.
I did not have that culture to casually say "Are you free this weekend? Let's go to the beach!" but if I lived near the beach even in Japan, I might have not felt or recognized the beach culture that I have came a cross. This might be considered to be a culture shock but I think it is not a international culture shock but more of a geological culture shock.

Going to the beach can still be something special. I just need to make it a special thing that I do often :)

I hope I am making sense.

See you soon!
Ellen