Today we planned to go to Kiyotsu Gorge in Niigata but, after spending a day walking at altitude yesterday, and after seeing the weather report, we felt a beach day was needed more. So, we decided to go to Ibaraki instead!
We booked a limited express train to Mito. On this train we had reserved seats and could eat our food on the trays provided, so we had our bento about half an hour before reaching the city. Mito actually surprised us so much. It is absolutely stunning and (again like Izu,) we are already planning our next trip back. Next time we want to see the park in the autumn with the different coloured leaves and without the nearly 40 degree heat melting us as we walk haha.
After Mito, we headed to Oarai. We were unsure how busy the beach would be, so had a trip to a shrine planned out in case it was too crowded. However, when we arrived at this tiny seaside town, a place that doesn’t even accept any kind of IC card and who has an old school station stamp BEHIND the desk at the ticket window (not like a stamp station set up for us to stamp and go like usual ha) we knew that we were just going to go to the beach. With all the energy left in us, (what remained after the sun draining the rest from our bodies,) we trekked 35 minutes to the beach. When we got there though, we were not disappointed! It was everything we wanted and more. The sands were golden, the water was clean and warm (our rash guards were purely for modesty and tattoo-hiding purposes only ha).
Sorry there aren’t that many photos, because the both of us went swimming and therefore didn’t take our phones, but Sam took some of me as I was first going in the water and we took a selfie afterwards to show how much fun we had.
Our new camera should be arriving this week, so we will have better quality photos soon, but until then, we hope you enjoy what we take on our phones. Sorry the quality isn’t the best but they were still taken with all the love that we put into our photos on our Canon, I promise!
Thanks again to everyone who reads my silly little blog. I’m sorry there’s so many updates this week – we’re trying to make the most of this holiday as much as possible and are excited to share the details with you guys. I’m trying to keep my rambling to a minimum, so I’ll just post the pictures now.
As always, sending all my love
-Alice
