Got off the train about 9 and headed like an automaton to the long line waiting at Stand 2 for the bus to take me home, squashed in with sweaty, weary workers. Became aware of the fact that there were loads of girls in colourful summer kimono, and boys in yukata - there's a festival going on. So walked back along the coast through throngs of youth and colour, and walking from Zushi to Hayama realised the importance of location. From the sea they look pretty much identical - small towns with a beach and green wooded hills behind. But Zushi has a station, the main road runs along the back of the beach, the other side of which are a series of brightly lit bars, clubs and restaurants. The beach is covered with bamboo bars, and drunken kids who pour in on the train, letting off fireworks, shouting and screaming while the cars stream by on the main road behind. There is rubbish everywhere. Hell.
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Walk half a mile round the corner and you are in Hayama - no train, no road, no screaming kids, just the beach, the waves, a couple of relatively calm bamboo beach bars, frequented by locals with respect. As I sit and watch the Enoshima lighthouse flash across Kamakura Bay, a girl sits in the sand a few yards away and plucks her ukelele - man-made sounds complementing the natural.
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Made me realise how lucky I am, generally speaking - I often seem to end up in great places - like our valley in Italy - my marai.
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.Turner's Slave Ship, 1840
