Recently, I went to Uradome Beach which is situated in Iwami Town, east of Tottori City for camping. The camping was actually a yearly activity held by Malaysian Community of Okayama, Japan. I was like kind of weird since I am a new comer who came here just for a long break; my presence is not that important to the club and contributing to nothing. Meeting new people has always been difficult to me, I always insist on extended times to cope with something new. (-_-')

My hubby bought three tents for the community via online shopping and one lantern to provide light for BBQ at night, not using his money, Okayama club fees instead. My tent mate was not my husband but a nice married lady who is so friendly; it was nice chatting with her, it felt like we had long known each other. Okay, the weather was quite bad, I mean not suitable for camping activity; it’s raining all day long. My tent was leaky, the rain seeped into the tent, and it’s a cheap tent anyway, so you can guess the quality of its material was not up to standard of expensive ones. My hubby put double layers of blue tarps above the tent so that rains would not drip in, he did it while I was having sea-bathing with girls, when I came back to camping side with wet cloth, with a big smirk swollen with pride, he said “Look what have I done to your tent, it looks damn good”. I went through the night with deep sleep without insect repellent covering an inch of my body. Guys were watching world cup at my hubby’s car at that time. 

                                                                     After Solat Subuh

Though it’s raining, I did not want to leap the chance to have sea-bathing at Uradome beach as I might not be there again. It was freaking cold, the rain clouds painted the sky, the beach looked a bit murky, hid the sunshine. Would you believe me if I say beach will not look that beautiful if it is raining, it turns out to be gloomy and frightening, but it looks heavenly stunning when sun is shining bright, try to walk at the seashore when it is raining, you will believe me then. I took a swimming float with some girls and enjoyed the ride on the waves using float to keep buoying us up. Every time waves hit us, we would go up right away and go down following the rhythm of the waves. A few activities could not be carried out since the weather was not good.

For me, the best part of the camping was BBQ night, when it comes to food; it would be the best part of all because nobody would skip the moment of dining together, it was food that made us get together. I just love BBQ!

The last activity was when we were on the way back home; we dropped by a nice spot for sea-bathing again.We had to climb a flight of steps which cut through steep mountains for about twenty minutes before we reached the coastline, the coastline is crescent shaped and has nice fine soft sand and crystal clear water that I could see through a bird’s eye view from a few stopovers. The stopovers were located in the region of the top of the mountain; from there I could see the coastline at the foot of the mountain. Every time I reached at stopovers, it egged me on to proceed my trekking across the hill. It was quite tiresome but when I finally felt my skin met an ocean breezes, the feeling of tired seemed to fade away. When I slowly walked into the water, I could see some sides of the beach are a few rock islets where a number of types of small fish like to hide out. 

                                                  Sea-bathing at Uradome Island

I did snorkeling to view the beauty of undersea; it was so exhilarating that I felt like did not want to go back to earth! Colorful seaweed painted the ocean floor that numerous species of fish darted in and out. The underfoot seaweed could be seen obviously. Layered rock jutted out of the ocean at a sharp angle creating numerous small islands and cliffs behind.

Afterward, we drove back home and ready to drop!

The next few days, my husband and I departed to Shibukawa, at about 15-20 minutes from our home. We had our lunch there, only white rice and Sambal Ikan bilis, but we did not care much about the meal as our real aim was to have a sea-bathing there. The beach has brownish sands, not as soft as Urodome’s and lush-green pine trees were seen everywhere at the shores. 

                                                                              Wetting

The beach offers all the services visitors want, nevertheless, none of them are free. Swimming floats can be rented and available. Parking next to the beach is quite expensive, but not crowded; it’s good to go to nice places without cram-full of people, feel more privacy, right? (^_^). Some people were enjoying marine sports; we only enjoyed watching them because we were penny-pinching even to rent the floats. We have to tighten our belt as our money were rather limited, it’s running out!

                                                           After sea-bathing at Shibukawa

I enjoyed the time of my life here; I do believe that sea-bathing gives the essence of relaxation and have curative or therapeutic value. This was such a getaway before I am going to leave for a jet plane back to Malaysia on this Wednesday and gear up for a new work, a new environment, new people, new spirit, yes, with everything new. It’s kind of scary thinking about it, get into a new place and spend years there has always been my nightmare!

.Alhamdulillah.