Thursday 15 July 2021

I Do Love to Be Beside the Seaside -海辺にいるのが好きだ-

“Daddy, Daddy!  It’s the sea!  It’s the sea!” 

During the short gap between two states of emergency in Tokyo, my family and I booked a two night stay in a hotel in Kamakura.  We were on the train out of Tokyo, and my four year old son was delighted to have seen the sea from the carriage window. 

My wife glanced out of the window.  “That’s not the sea.  That’s a river.,” she said. 

My son had never seen the sea before, and had gotten a little confused. 

“Rivers are much smaller than the sea,” I said.  “They are like long snakes, carrying water from the mountains down to a lower level.  The sea is like a huge bath tub.” 

“Like a bath tub even bigger than our house?” my son asked. 

Eventually we did make it to the seaside, and my son was suitably impressed.  He stood at the water’s edge, and ran screaming backwards as the waves crashed onto land.  He went searching for life, and proudly brought me samples of wakame seaweed, shells, and a starfish. 

It was even more exciting than our bath tub at home.

 

Vocabulary:

a carriage – on a train, one section like a room, which usually has a door at one or both ends, connecting it to other sections of the train (Example: I’ll meet you on the platform.  I will get off at the first door on the third carriage.)

to glance somewhere – to look somewhere quickly or briefly

 



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