The Echizen Coastline

The breeze is tinged sweetly with salt. There's a crash. There's a retreat. There's a crash and a retreat and a crash and a retreat. It settles into a constant background hum. A scream above where we sit on the edge of the water heralds a diving kite.

Since getting my license and regaining my automobility last year, I've been to the Echizen Coastline -- the vast stretch of Fukui's coastline along the Sea of Japan -- once or twice a month. On good days, it's a 20-minute drive from home. I think I take its proximity for granted now, but I can't say I'm used to it.

The Echizen Fishing Harbor

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Growing up, going to the beach meant a 10-hour drive south. It was a vacation destination only. I remember three to four day vacations to Virginia Beach when we only got out of the

brine for chow or sleep. (There were also the occasional shark incursions.) We had to rush to get all that ocean time in before returning to landlocked country.

Here, though, I can just sit. Some days it's only long enough to finish a canned coffee. Others, I've got everything I need to camp out in the car. Those times the waves act as both tranquilizer and gentle morning alarm. This beach-without-the-rush thing, I often think, came into my life way too late.

Making dinner in the back of my Atrai before the sun goes down.

You can often find my wife and I driving along the water before work. The roads wind and narrow suddenly at points. In certain spots, ryokan, something like bed-and-breakfasts, line either side of the street. Mailboxes, electrical poles, signage, poorly parked cars -- there is often so much to dodge that driving feels like exercise.

Eventually, the streets open and there is nothing but asphalt ahead, mountains and the Sea of Japan on either side. I sometimes get a sense that all of this is beautiful but completely ordinary when I head seaside with family or friends. I wonder if I'd feel the same now taking people to visit the town built of fields and forests in which I grew up. I wonder still if the saltspray and thrum of waves on breakers will become ordinary. Here's hoping they never do.

See more of the Echizen Coastline over on Instagram.