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May 24th: Shirahama

    May 24th was fortunately a free day for us so me and my friends decided to go to the beach. After some researching for beaches around Osaka we found the town of Shirahama in Wakayama prefecture known for its white quartz beach, scenic cliffs, and amusement parks. The only real catch was that it was a 3 hour train ride away, but without any other ideas on what to do for the day we bit the bullet and went for it. Our other buddy Joseph wasn't into the idea of going to the beach so the crew was Aidan, Joe, and Me. We set out at around 9 am out of Namba station to begin our journey. The train ride itself was quite lovely and scenic and took us through the mountainous countryside and coast.

After arriving in the Shirahama station we immediately had to hop onto a bus with little to no English support, but we eventually figured it out and ended up on the beach. Our first impression was spoiled by the realization that Aidan and I both needed a towel, so swimming was postponed until we located a store. During our hunt we ended up stumbling upon this kaisendon restaurant that one of our OMU friends recommended to us so we stopped there for some lunch. I got this spicy fish bowl that was absolutely fantastic and its price of 1000 yen was shocking.

 


We eventually got some towels and headed for the beach where we discovered the water was a little colder than expected. I grew up on the pacific where the waters aren't really forgiving when it comes to temperature so I rushed right in, but it took some serious coaxing for my buddies to get their heads wet. After the ocean we walked around the coast to this cafe called Tsumugi which was surprisingly Turkish themed. I had probably the best baklava I have ever had in my life there.


Knowing that a cliff view was nearby we ended up walking about 20 minutes to get there. The walk itself was beautiful as we got to explore the neighborhood and coast, but the cliffs were probably the best thing we saw the whole day. We were pretty wiped after this, and the last train was coming up so we called it a day and headed back. Overall, pretty solid day and am super happy we got to explore a place that I would have never visited without this trip and opportunity.






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