I love the beach, but still hadn’t seen it all year. So yesterday Hirokazu and I went to Kaihin Makuhari, in Chiba prefecture (right next door to Katsushika-ku in Tokyo, where we live).

Here are some photos and videos. You can click on the photos to see them larger.

 

Arriving in Kaihin Makuhari, which is within walking distance of the sea. The Chiba Lotte Marines stadium is also here, and they had a game scheduled for later in the day.

 

The Marines mascot.

 

Walking through a park on the way to the sea.

 

A short video of some bees pollinating flowers in the park. I’m sorry that we’re going to probably have to exterminate the bees invading a wall of our four-family in St. Louis. But we did try our best to give them strong hints to leave.

 

Stopping at a koi pond to feed the fish and birds – video below!

 

Feeding the koi (a video)

 

Stopping at the lotus pond in the park on our way to the seashore.

 

Signs warning us to be on the lookout for redback spiders and fire ants. Oookay……

 

Have evaded the spiders and ants – and there is the seashore in the distance!

 

At the sea!

 

This is our exact location.

 

 

A video of dragonflies along the beach

 

 

This photo is actually one of my favorites. You can see a family wading into the sea, a young couple with their child. Meanwhile on shore the grandmother is taking a photo of them. And there are soft rays from the sun shining down. If you click on it you can see it larger.

 

While walking along the shore we passed that family, and their little kid tried to give me a dead crab he found. Cute. I showed the father the photo I took and he loved it, and asked for a copy, so he typed in his email address into my iPhone and I sent it to him right there. Later I heard back saying how much his family enjoyed the photo. New friends?

 

 

Lonely footprints along the sand. Odd that they are two left feet walking together though…

 

Hirokazu took off his Crocs to wade in the water.

 

And we caught a live crab! Also see the video of the capture and release below!

 

 

On the way back, we saw this strange graffiti in a few places…

 

By this time Marines Stadium was starting to fill up with fans coming for the 5:00 Seibu for Lotte game. There was a lot of pre-game music and activity and buses and crowds were streaming in. I was glad we were headed in the opposite direction.

 

 

See you!

 

And my sole souvenir for the day.