On Saturday morning we departed Tokyo together with Sachi-san and Toku-san for a 3 days weekend at their summer house. It is located a 1.5-2 hours drive north east of Tokyo, just passed Chiba. We had no clue about the summer house and was surprised when we finally arrived. A wooden wall with a small “Ocean 6” written in blue on a sign. It looked like a big boat house.

But walking through a small door in the wooden wall we found that inside it was a large building dressed in unpainted weatherbeaten wood. They had found the land 25 years ago and together with 6 friends built the summer house, or rather private summer resort. 6 units in one building with the same general layout but with totally different interior decoration.

First floor in all units was an open space kitchen dining living room area with a large window wall towards the large wooden deck with a pool and ocean view. The second floor was an open space with the same glass wall as downstairs giving the bedroom an ocean view. In the back on the room was a wall of wardrobes with one door not being a wardrobe but a door into a large bathroom behind the wardrobes, bright with a glass roof.

The summer house was like another world. Surrounded by the wall on the back and green bushy forest of various trees and bamboo. No other houses in site. No sound but the wind and the ocean. And about a billion dragonflies buzzing around all day long, like in a fairytale. It was easy to relax here.

When it was too hot after staying in the sun or helping out cutting down some bamboo we cooled off in the pool. Chie was a great pool manager, keeping the pool clean 🙂 But besides pooling, cutting bamboo and cleaning the pool there were plenty of time to do just nothing but relaxing as well.

During evenings we had dinner together, talking about all things and nothing at all. Just enjoying spending time.

The last day we went down to the beach. It was a long sandy beach… And really hot and humid. Very different from the summer house just a few hundred meters away. We spent some time there walking around looking for shells and other things that have washed up on the beach.

Monday night (national holiday) we had dinner before returning back to Tokyo. It was a very nice extended weekend 🙂