Zero minutes to the sea:summer vacation in Kamogawa

A morning in a town rich in nature, surrounded by the sea and mountains. I am staying in an old house on the coast of Kamogawa, on the Boso Peninsula in Chiba. From a rise above the town I could take in the whole sweep of the bay: the curved beach, the fishing port, and the hotels standing along the shore.

I slipped into my flip-flops and stepped outside; beyond the railing was the sea, right there. Standing on the rocks, the magnificent view of the Pacific was dazzling to eyes just woken. A flock of gulls rested on the sand, and a single white shell lay at my feet. At the water's edge, where the waves rolled in and out, a summer day was beginning.

Breakfast was made from horse mackerel sashimi caught in the nearby sea. I tore perilla leaves by hand, grated ginger, and chopped green onion. Then I sliced the fish on the board, piled the herbs on top, and added miso for seasoning.

With the knife I chopped it all finely. As the blade tapped away, fish, miso and herbs melted into one another and the mixture grew smooth and sticky. When it was ready, there it was: namero, the specialty of Boso and the pinnacle of fisherman's rice.

I put a generous heap on freshly cooked rice to make a namero bowl, carried the blue-patterned bowl out to the veranda facing the sea, and said my thanks before eating.

Fatty horse mackerel, the flavor of miso and herbs: a taste unique to a seaside town. Beyond the deck railing lay the sea, and shells I had gathered sat in a row along the curb. The sound of the waves and the scent of the tide were seasonings too.

In the afternoon I walked along the coastal road to the swimming beach. Following the seawall, I came out onto a shore where the sand ran along a line of hotels.

Speaking of summer vacation, it has to be the beach. When I was a kid, I came every year. A swim ring hung on a post, and banners for shaved ice and ramune fluttered in front of a beach hut raised on stilts over the sand. From its white-railed terrace, I looked out at the sea.

The ramen I ate at the beach hut on that summer day, after playing until I forgot I was tired: it tasted better than any feast. Soy sauce ramen in a red bowl, with slices of pork, bamboo shoots and green onion. The taste of those memories is still alive.

Shaved ice is another snack that belongs to summer. I spooned up the ice under its red syrup. Eating it until your tongue turns bright red is the proper way.

From a green chair on the terrace, I watched the tents along the beach and the figures playing at the water's edge. Sparkling, dazzling memories of summer.

Leaving the beach hut, I came to a road with a railway crossing. Beyond the signals, a train striped in blue and yellow swept past. Tracks buried in greenery; the sea spreading out past the crossing.

From a rise I could see the coastline, with a cove and a small island floating offshore. I walked down a shaded road and through an old tunnel, and on the other side the blue sky and the seaside town opened up again.

Past the tunnel, in the middle of a grassy field, stood a wooden hut with a sign reading natural tokoroten. This too is a summer tradition: tokoroten, an old-fashioned treat made by boiling seaweed and chilling it until it sets.

The shopkeeper lifted a translucent block from a tub of water and pressed it through a wooden press into noodles. My favorite is the one with plenty of kuromitsu, dark sugar syrup, poured over the top, finished with a single red cherry.

Posters in the window told me the shop uses tengusa seaweed from the local sea. Sprinkle with kinako soybean flour and black sesame, and enjoy. I mixed it well with my chopsticks and took a mouthful.

A pleasant chewiness and the scent of the sea: cool and delicious, the taste of summer. Outside the window the green ran down toward the sea, and on the wall hung a painting of a seaside building and a photograph of a rocky shore.

Back along the coastal road: I'm home. A house by the sea, with the water glittering beyond a curved road mirror and a small bus stop standing at the roadside.

I poured a non-alcoholic lemon drink from a lemon-patterned can into a glass and settled into the rattan chair by the window. The evening sea filled the windows of the tatami room. Waves broke on the rocks of the beach, and the hotels of the town in the distance were tinted by the sunset.

As the sun went down, I set a mosquito coil in the pig-shaped holder and lit it with a match. A frying pan went onto the blue flame of the stove: the classic summer-vacation dish is sauce yakisoba.

Squid and cabbage went in first, then the noodles, loosened and tossed in the sauce. I looked forward to the stalls at the summer festival every year, and the fragrant smell of this sauce brings the summer back.

I brought a small charcoal grill out onto the veranda for seafood skewers, too: octopus and squid threaded on sticks, sizzling over the mesh. I came to understand how important the seafood skewers at the stalls are only after becoming an adult who drinks beer.

Yakisoba on a black plate, topped with red pickled ginger and aonori, the skewers beside it and a well-chilled can: the festival-stall dinner was ready. The smell of the sauce whets the appetite. Stuff your mouth with piping hot yakisoba and wash it down with an ice-cold drink (tonight, a non-alcoholic beer). Summer vacation is the best, even when you grow up.

At night, I lit a sparkler on the veranda. Summer time seems to pass in a special way: high in contrast, vividly remembered. With the scent of the mosquito coil in the air, the beginning of a long and short summer.