This tale starts very innocently.
I’m Australian, and I grew up near a beautiful 600 meter beach. I love swimming in the ocean, I feel completely at home in the water. It’s summertime in Japan, and I decided I wanted to go to the beach to break away from my busy Tokyo life for a day.
Now, it’s quite a challenge to find good beaches close to Tokyo, without traveling a few hours. In the quest of a good beach near Tokyo, I hopped on the internet. Within a few minutes of searching, I came across this passage :
“If you’re up for an adventure, there is a hidden beach between Chiba and Katsuura. There is a jungle path through thick foliage for 20 minutes, then a tunnel going into the mountain. After this, you will come out on an untouched, beautiful beach paradise.”
Irresistible. I printed out maps and directions, enlisted my room-mate Dan, and we packed and headed off to Katsuura.
2.5 hours later we arrived to a small station, in the middle of the Japanese countryside. I walked up to a taxi driver, and explained our desired destination. He jumped out of his cab and consulted with some other taxi-drivers. He came back after a couple of minutes, gave us a toothy grin and motioned for us to get in. Awesome!
25 minutes later, we were speeding through rice fields surrounded by mountains, trees, plants and tiny quaint Japanese houses.
Soon after, we stopped on a remote road, covered either side by trees. There was an abandoned van parked on the opposite side of the road. A bush path curved off into the trees. Dan and I scanned the area, confused.
“I think it’s here.” the taxi driver said cautiously. “Have a look around.”
As I stepped outside, I realized that if we were wrong, we were pretty much screwed. It would take hours to walk back to the station. There were no shops, or convenience stores, or bus stations. Just long, empty country roads. Dan and I looked at each other, both of us having a similar realization.
About 100 meters down the path, I saw a family having lunch.
“Hey, let me go and ask them quickly. Maybe they know if theres a beach up ahead.” I said.
The taxi driver nodded his ascent, and climbed back into the taxi. I jogged down the path, Dan following a few steps behind.
“Konnichiha!” I said with a large smile on my face.
The family stopped eating, and slowly turned their heads to look at us. Suddenly, I felt uncomfortable.
“I was just wondering if theres a beach up ahead?” I asked as politely as I could, while all 7 members of the family stared at me like I had just dropped my pants.
There was an awkward silence.
“Yeah.” The father said.
I paused, waiting for him to continue. He didn’t.
“Oh, thanks very much.” I said.
I turned, and walked back to the taxi with Dan.
“That was odd. I’ve never had a group of people be that unfriendly towards me. Especially out in the Japanese country-side.”
“Weird,” Dan agreed.
We arrived back at the taxi, and thanked him for his help, and sent him on his way. We returned the same way, passing the unfriendly family. I smiled and waved. They ignored me in return. Oh well.
The bush path suddenly narrowed. I was pushing brush and branches out of my face as Dan trailed about 3 meters behind. We trudged deeper into the forest. I suddenly froze out of instinct, as I registered a spider a little smaller than my hand 5 inches from my face. I grabbed a stick and pushed the spider away, as I thought up ideas to swap places with Dan.
We pushed on into the forest, hoping that we would soon find the tunnel.
Suddenly, I was falling. My flip-flop (thong, beach sandal, depending on your country of origin) stuck half a foot in thick mud, and I flailed my arms to regain balance. I barely avoided falling off the side of a small overpass. I took off both sandals, and I braved the jungle path completely barefoot.
I moved quickly through the brush, simultaneously shaking my legs and arms, so if a spider or something with teeth managed to find my foot or arms, it would be thrown off before it could sink it’s fangs into my unprotected skin. I would have looked like a mentally unstable hopeful on the TV Show “So you think you can dance”, as I bush-danced into the forest.
Finally we came upon an opening, a tunnel into a mountain. It led into darkness, with a spec of light visible at the end of the tunnel. The ground was slippery and wet. A gentle river trickled down the path. We both stepped slowly and cautiously, one foot at a time to avoid slipping and breaking our necks.
After a few minutes, we came out of the tunnel, to be greeted by a view I will never forget. Cascading cliffs, white sand, and a completely private, natural beach opened up beneath us. Incredible. To reach the beach we had to trek down a final narrow path, with a 2 meter drop on the left-hand side. After 5 cautious minutes, we finally made it down to the beach.
Stunning.
I had seen few beaches like this in the world, let alone 3 hours from Tokyo. Dan and I surveyed the beach. There were 2 sun-bakers to the left. An abandoned camp-site on our immediate right. To the right, the beach stretched off into the distance. We grinned at each other and immediately began walking to the right, to explore more of the beach.
We were so absorbed by the beauty of the beach, we didn’t notice him until he was about 5 meters away from us. We turned to face a Japanese guy. Wearing a florescent green g-string. His gut fell over his tiny swimsuit, which strained to keep his barely suppressed package from spilling out.
“Oh hellooo there!” He cried as he waved at us.
A moments silence.
“Oh, hi,” I smiled, as he walked past.
Dan and I continued walking in silence for a few seconds.
“What the fuck was that?” Dan asked.
“I… don’t know. I think he was wearing a fluro-green g-string. Unexpected.” I said. “Oh hey, there are some people over there. Maybe they’re friendly, lets go and say hello.” I pointed off into the distance.
“Ok sure. Man that was weird.” Dan said, as we continued walking along the beach.
Suddenly, about 200 meters away from the group of Japanese, we both made a horrifying realization at exactly the same time. There were 5 Japanese guys on the beach. And all of them were completely naked.
“What…” we both stammered, frozen.
Suddenly, one of the Japanese men stood. He walked over to a rock. He bent forward, and placed his open palms on the rock. Another Japanese man stood. He walked over, and crouched down on his knees, his face inches from the bending man’s naked ass. He took a firm grasp of a cheek with each hand, and extended his tongue.
What happened next burned itself onto my retinas.
Dan and I immediately turned 180 degrees. After a moment, we began walking back the way we came.
“Holy fuck.” I exclaimed.
“Oh my god.” Dan replied.
“Did you… He put… I can’t…. Oh my god.” I sputtered as we power-walked through the sand back to the cliff.
The fluro green g-stringed man waved at us in the distance. I waved back awkwardly, as I clambered up the cliff to get back to the road.
We walked in silence for 10 minutes. I consider myself to be very liberal in my beliefs, and I have had many gay friends in my life (and I still do in Tokyo). But to suddenly be faced by graphic gay sex on a deserted Japanese paradise beach, I was having trouble handling that. I realized why the family was cold to us before – they assumed that we were 2 gay guys heading down to the beach for some indiscriminate homo sex.
We returned to the road. I looked left, and right. I realized I had no idea which way to go. There were no signs or cars. “I think we came from the right side.” I said, breaking the silence.
“Yeah.” Dan’s voice quavered slightly.
“Lets go that way.” I said.
Dan agreed. We started walking.
The crickets chirped, the sun beat down on us, and the stifling humidity soon covered us both in sweat. We kept walking. Minutes passed. Soon, an hour. Our phones had no reception. We had almost no perception of time as we continued to walk along the path.
We realized we were getting de-hydrated, and dizzy. After another 40 minutes of walking, we were exhausted, with no end in sight.
Suddenly, a car appeared out of nowhere, and pulled up alongside us.
“Hi there! Where are you going?” The Japanese male driver called out in uncertain English.
“Anywhere”, I croaked. “Any station.”
“The closest station is another 1 hour walk. Why don’t you hop in?” He offered.
“Really? Thank you very much!” we said as we got into the car, overflowing with gratitude.
I switched to Japanese to make it easier for him to talk to me.
“Thanks very much again for picking us up.” I said.
“Sure, any time.” He replied.
“So where did you go today?” I asked to strike up a conversation.
“I went to the beach.” He said.
“Oh cool, did you go surfing? Body boarding?” I asked with interest.
“Um…… no. Actually, I was at a…. nudist beach.” He said slowly.
My eyes widened, as I made the connection. I struggled to continue the conversation.
“Oh… cool… so you were….. sunbaking?” I asked nervously.
“Not quite,” he said, looking at me.
I coughed loudly. Dan sat in the back of the car, completely oblivious to the entire conversation.
There was a couple of minutes of silence in the car. I struggled to find a topic that was completely unrelated to gay sex on the beach. Mercifully, the station appeared a couple of minutes later.
We graciously thanked the guy, as he drove off, waving at us.
I related the conversation to Dan, who was surprised at the coincidence.
“So.. you mean he was one of those guys?” Dan asked.
“I think so, judging by the look he gave me.” I said as we walked through the ticket gates.
It was a bit uncomfortable, and I discovered I’m a bit more close minded than I previously thought. But I expanded my comfort-zone, the beach itself was breathtaking, and it was definitely an adventure. That’s the end of my beach adventures. Until of course, I went camping with 7 pot-smoking Japanese hippy surfers at a World War 2 hidden beach outpost the Saturday after that. But that’s a different story 
