On summer weekends, Kugenuma Beach turns into a parody of the nearby metropolis' encroachment on the holidaymaker, with girls in bikinis and 20-cm platform sandals struggling across the sand while loudspeakers on towers belch J-pop at 50-meter intervals, making it difficult to find a moment for quiet contemplation.
Stroll past the bridge that connects nearby Enoshima to the mainland and continue up the coast to Kamakura, and you will pass the spot where Akiko Kobayashi used to swim as a girl. She was born a year after the conclusion of World War II, and her memories are a far cry from Kugenuma's current surfboards and fashion victims.
"I chased fish, collected seashells and once I happened upon the spawning of a sea turtle," she recalled. "I also remember a man who would sit on a stone step of my father's shrine and play the shakuhachi. He was poorly dressed, perhaps a demobilized soldier, and the sound of his flute would calm my childish spirit."