A shift in the breeze

A cool westerly breeze blew across the beach promenade on my ride home today. I suppose it was cooled as it crossed Japan’s Inland Sea and Osaka Bay. The wind actually gave a little chop to the bay within the barrier islands off of Nishinomiya. The day was very warm at school, but once I got into the breeze I cooled off. It felt nice.

I altered my ride avoiding my usual cross-town trek. I followed the beach promenade to a large hardware store in Imazu, a neighborhood along the bay in Southern Nishinomiya. I had to go shopping for boxes for our move home.

Japan has conspired to keep us. The prices of airfare have nearly doubled from the times Chrissy has journeyed to and fro. Extra bags from Japan also cost two hundred dollars each. So we have researched other ways to escape.

Airfare from Seoul Korea is half the price as from any airport in Japan. This fact will draw us across the Korean Strait on a hydrofoil. After my last day, we will take the train to Hiroshima for the night and visit the Atomic Dome and Miyajima, a shrine just across the bay from Hiroshima. The next day we will continue our train ride to Hakata, a port just north of Nagasaki on Kyushu. Our trip on the ferry will last two hours before we land in Pusan. We will spend five days taking in as much of Korea as we can on our way to the airport. While we travel most of our past year's accumulations will take the slow boat across the pacific.

The breeze also cleared the air exposing Kobe for the first time since we have been here. I was shocked on my ride. Kobe is closer than Osaka and I have frequently seen Osaka in the distance from the schools where I have worked, but I have never seen Kobe. Usually there is a haze hanging over Osaka Bay obscures the view to the west.

Today was also the first day I saw a couple of guys swimming in the bay. Japan is a land of seasons and the only appropriate time to swim is in the summer, which is strictly the months of July and August. Today was first day of July. Maybe that explains the shift in the breeze.