Taro Toporific wrote:the wall wrote:Im looking for a beach within lets say.. an hour and a half to two hours from the tokyo area.. somewhere we can have a little privacy and maybe a picnic on the beach at night.. somethign nice, not trashy.. and not loaded with lots of people on a nice warm night in july... somewhere we can be alone!...
The "Boso Triangle"
-- ORAKU beaches for FG smooth operators
Raise your right hand FG.
Repeat after me:
I do solemnly swear to be cool about this "secret" nude beach, not to litter, and live-&-let-live with any weirdoes might be using the beach, so help me Kami-sama !
Ok, now that your all swore in let me tell you the best bitchin' beach in Kanto where I go to for solitude.
In this long-forgotten, not-online, Tokyo Journal article the now famous Gregory Clarkextols the beaches of the "Boso Triangle." I followed his mysterious directions and found "Shangri-la across the Bay"in Chiba's Boso peninsula. You can too."Chiba, Shangri-la across the Bay"
---by Gregory Clark, Tokyo Journal, Sept. 1990, pg 17
In Boso the beaches are so long and so wide you could dump the whole 30 million population of Tokyo, Chiba and Yokohama there and still have a lot of room to breathe. At the moment we only have a small fraction of that 30 million coming out during the summer. Bu if even that fraction worries you then let me tell you the rest of the secret.
Take a map and you will see the on the east side of Boso, a small strip of uninhabited coast between Ohara and Onjuku. It is uninhabited for a good reason: miles of steep 50-80 meter cliffs cut off all approach from the land. But centuries ago fishermen cut tunnels through to the bottoms of these cliffs so they could gather their seaweed and shellfish below. The entrances become overgrown and forgotten in the postwar wars and only now are being discovered [by surfers].
Of these secret beaches, my favorite is about three kilometers south of the fishing village of Iwafune. You walk about ten minutes on a muddy track from a dead-end parking road, slide through the mudrock tunnel and emerge at the top of a narrow trail about half way up the side of a cliff. The view that hits up as you come out of the dark, dank tunnel is unforgettable: a kilometer long pink/white sand beach, clean blue ocean, sheer cliffs with caves and ocean grottoes at the foot and an occasionally waterfall cascading down.
In the middle of August last year the beach was crowed--all of ten people. Several of them were naked. A small group was camping out. Distance from Tokyo: all of 100 minutes.
...Keep away from the main coastal roads in the top half of the peninsula, though, since in typical Japanese style they are now crowed out with the worst unplanned, tacky, urbane growth. But further down the coast we have some of the best beaches in Japan for surfing, especially on the Pacific side of the peninsula.
Onjuku, about half way down the coast, I would recommend for a family outing, is not too spoiled and with a broad white sand beach.
Kamagawa, a bit further down, has a good beach too and has some classy faculties, including a first-rate marine park.
The indented coastline between Onjuku and Kamagawa would be ideal of a long summer holiday, any number of small fishing villages with cheap minishiku and good places to explore...the Riviera of Tokyo.
...On balance I prefer my own neck of the woods, the triangle running from Ichinomiya/Ohara on the east coast, down to Kamagawa and then north up to Yoro-keikoku.
So there you have it. Get a good topographic hiking map and follow the instructions to the letter as I did to find it:
1. Go "three kilometers south of the fishing village of Iwafune" following the smallest road nearest the coast.
2. Find the "dead-end parking road" which is only a 50m spur off this micro coastal road. (Actually there are 3 "dead-end parking roads"]TA DA! PARIDISE! [/b] "Emerge at the top of a narrow trail about half way up the side of a cliff...see a kilometer long pink white sand beach."
Oh, by the way, here's a GREAT line that I used at that beach with my lady --- be sure to tell your girl to:
"At least take your top off so you won't look too odd."
It's a gay beach.
Pumping adrenalin into a zombie to report that I have information that access to this beach is now barred by a steel cage at the entrance to the tunnel with a locked gateway. The cliff face had been shedding rubble for years beforehand and it was in increasingly risky descent.
I can also confirm that if you went to the far end of the beach you had to be prepared to see some activities you don't usually see out in public.
(I think it might have been this post which first lead me to FG)
