海の中道 Uminonakamichi Seaside Park

"Can you please pass me that on the ground?" I said to him, pointing to the box with the paper towels.

"Sure, here you go... Garden."

I kind of froze for a moment. "You.... remember my name...?" I mean, that's probably not the cutest nickname you can come up with for someone, but that's the first time I've heard that... and you definitely needed to remember my name to come up with that.

"And apparently you remembered mine, too. I heard you calling me while you were over there."

Idiot. Then why did you keep walking away?! "Haha. I guess we are even then. Uhm, thanks." I took the box of paper towels from him and turned around. That was the first time I actually looked at this person directly the entire day... Who is this person...?!

I don't know what it was... the way he looked at me, the way he answered, the weather, the sun, the beer... whoever he was, he definitely made my heart skip a beat.

---

Spring has come and gone, and the weather has finally been nice enough for short sleeves and outdoor activities. I have been complaining to my friend about how bored I was, and that we should do something together.

"Sure, how about going on a picnic at Uminonakamichi next weekend?" he said.

"Sounds great!"

Uminonakamichi is an island located north of Fukuoka, between Hakata Bay and Genkai Sea. It is kind of far from the city because you have to go all the way east around the Bay, just to go westbound again to where the island actually is. One nice thing about it though, is that the JR stops directly in front of the park. I took the JR from Hakata Station, and changed trains at Kashii. The whole ride, if I didn't get lost, would take about 40mins.

Station and entrance to the park. I like how it fits the natural theme!

"Hi, I'm at the JR station. Where are you guys?" I called my friend to ask for directions. 

"We are at the middle of the park, in the big field!" he said.

I almost wanted to hang up on her and go home. A field? In the middle of the park?! Surely anyone could give better instructions that this...!

So I looked at the map that was located by the entrance. While there were a million fields in this park, load and behold, there is a big field in the center. "Do you mean "Symphony Garden" near the Ferris wheel?" I ask.

"Yes, that's it! Call me when you get to the Ferris wheel. I will meet you there!"

This park is pretty big...

This park was way bigger than I anticipated. After about 20mins walk to get to the middle of the park, I finally found my friend and his friends. I guess because I was late, I got introduced to everyone, but I didn't really get to know everyone's name... that's when I saw him, just chatting among the boys...

The group of us ended up renting a bicycle and rode around the park. It was 400yen to rent a bike for the day. The only available bikes were mamachari bikes or foldable bikes with a basket in front if it. Apparently, you are prohibited from bringing your own bikes into the park. My guess is that they only want slow bikes with brakes around the park because there are a lot of people (and a lot of kids!!) sometimes. And I guess the baskets were necessary for carrying the food and beer that we brought...

 My ride for the day. And that Ferris wheel.

To go around the main part of the park would probably take about 30mins on a bike. We took about 1.5 hours because we stopped at different places. This park was beautiful. Behind the "field" where we met, was a hill full of these gorgeous blue flowers. 

Across from these hills was zoo with small animals inside. There was a lake with swans you can feed, a couple of different types of monkeys, some wallabies, some donkeys.... and.... cabybaras!

What is a capybara?

"Hi! I am a capybara. Japanese people drew a cute cartoon of me, but this is what I look like in real life."

THAT, is a capybara. I've never heard of these animals before until I came to Japan. Apparently they are the largest rodent on the planet (they were about the size of a golden retriever), so I guess that makes them giant guniea pigs. 

We continued to biked some more and reached the West Exit of the park. The field in this area was surrounded by beds of tulips next to a big lake. We finally decided that this was a good area for us to have our picnic!

I love tulips!

We started eating and drinking in the afternoon. I actually didn't really get to talk to him that much at first; we both engaged in some conversation about our work place and the usual small talk with a group of people, but I didn't talked to him directly. I guess there were enough people around to mingle. Overall though, it was a pretty fun day. 

The park closed at 5:30, so we started packing up around 5 and returned our bikes. I was going to wipe off the tarp before we folded it up, and I saw him with the box. So I followed him...

---

We finally packed up everything. My friend offered to drive us back to Hakata Station in his van, so about 7 of us piled in. I was sitting in the back row in a corner. Everyone was exchanging phone numbers and Facebook contacts.

"Hey, are you on Facebook? You should add me!" I said, trying to be as casual as I can.

"No, not unless we are actual friends. So give me your number." he said.

I tried to hide my smile as best as I could, but by now I am probably blushing like a peach. I called him so my number would show up on his phone, and he added me on Facebook.

Then, all I wanted to do, was to see him again.