Enjoying Dad Life at Zushi Beach

I think what I appreciate the most about my life in Japan is the area where I live. Zushi is a small town. We don’t have a mall or any significant sights that attract tourists. Zushi is filled with a wide variety of small businesses and a beach. That’s it. And the beach is often overlooked for more popular venues along the Shonan coast; Kamakura and Enoshima.

Another reason why folks avoid Zushi Beach is because of its strict tattoo policy. If you’ve never visited Japan before or have no idea what I’m talking about, tattoos are extremely taboo in Japan; they’re often associated with Yakuza and organized crime. It’s rare to see Japanese people with tattoos, especially one that is visible.

Zushi has other beach policies that help to keep people away. You’re not allowed to drink on the beach or play loud music. The goal is to create a more family friendly environment for locals in the community. While these rules do affect U.S. military members who often have tattoos, I honestly appreciate them.

So where do you go if you want to party at the beach, get drunk and take off your shirt?

I believe Enoshima is much more lenient with their policy. It’s way more touristy with more to offer travelers than what we have here in Zushi. There’s also Shirahama Beach, it’s roughly three hours south of Tokyo.

I visited Shirahama three years ago and immediately noticed the difference in atmosphere. As much as I enjoyed it, it’s not a place I would take my children. During that trip, a random guy stripped naked and ran around the beach. He was eventually arrested by the police. While indecent exposure is unacceptable anywhere, the fact that this guy thought it be a good idea to do it speaks to Shirahama’s vibe. It was an interesting trip, but not a place I’ll be returning to anytime soon.

You definitely won’t see that kind of behavior in Zushi.

You can expect to see locals windsurfing and practicing yoga.

And on a good day, you can see Mt.Fuji in the distance.

For today’s video, I thought I’d dust off some footage and stitch it together for a raw vlog style. I went with no music and minimal editing to showcase a trip to the beach in its purest form. I honestly can’t remember when this was shot, but it’s a solid representation of Zushi Beach on any random day. As you can tell from the video, my daughter loves the beach. She does this interesting meditation thing in the water that I’ve never seen her do before. My best guess is that she learned it from school.

Because I standout like a sore thumb out here, many families in the community know me and my kids.

I want to make more videos like this but with the way things are turning out in the world, it might be a while before we can go on adventures like this. We still go for walks and occasionally barbecue outside, but this level of interaction is being curtailed while the world figures itself out. In the meanwhile I’m working on a backlog of videos I shot earlier this year.

Maybe I’ll film a trip to the grocery store for the essentials? We’ll see.

Some Sources:

Zushi Beach Rules

‘Scary’ tattoo ban passed at popular beach for servicemembers in Japan