The Beach (Picture Heavy)

There's a bike path along the river between where we are and downtown Kanazawa, the Saigawa river, that takes you out to the Sea of Japan. We went along the Saigawa River Cycling Path to check out the beach. It was an amazingly nice day, and only takes a little over an hour from our apartment to get to the ocean. It would take less than an hour if there weren't people on the sidewalks and traffic lights to wait for getting to the river, but once we're on the river, it's pretty clear and open. There are a couple of places on the path that give me the heebie jeebies because there's a drop to the river on one side and a drop into someone's garden on the other, but for the most part, it's a nice wide open path. There was some really nice scenery, and once everything is in bloom it will be amazing. There are some areas with cherry trees, and once it gets to Hanami, or cherry blossom viewing season, the grassy areas along the river will be filled with people out for picnics under the cherry trees. We can't wait to see what they look like in bloom. It should be early April, so we shouldn't be waiting too long!


The beach here is one of the most trash-filled beaches I've ever seen. It's disgusting. I really wanted to walk along the beach barefoot, but that was just not an option with the amount of trash. Near the surf, it was pretty clear, but it's still March and not too warm at that! We'll have to go to another beach or just be more adventurous next time.


There was a very interesting wall made of, well, concrete jacks. Or at least, that's what they looked like to me! It goes off to the horizon, except for a few breaks here and there, allowing the ocean and boats to go in and out. I didn't see any No Swimming signs, so I assume that you can swim at least on the beach side of this wall. It's kind of bizarre to see huge concrete jacks in a line, as if a giant hadn't cleaned up his toys, extending further than you can see.


Once we got to the beach, we found a vending machine that sold Sprite! Apparently, you have to bike an hour to get some Sprite around here! Here is a picture of Japanese vending machines; in the larger one, the top row with the red line underneath is all hot drinks, and the bottom two with the blue lines are cold:


The whole time, we could see the snow-covered mountains off in the distance. Very cool. We took quite a few pictures of them from different areas. As always, more pictures can be seen on Flickr.