Only in Adelaide

My hometown is a city called Adelaide and is in Australia. Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia, but it is not a big bustling city like Sydney or Brisbane. It is often called a `big country town`, but really it is a city, and it has many of the conveniences of a city while being quite a comfortable place to live. I came to Japan to work about seven years ago and since then, I have lived in Sapporo, Yokohama and Tokyo. There are many things I love about living in Japan, for example, the delicious food, the convenient transportation system and the Japanese language. I also love the distinct seasons that are each beautiful in their own way. I love the Christmas and winter light displays during the winter months, I love seeing the cherry blossom trees explode with color in spring, making even dirty, ugly city streets look beautiful, I love the sound of the cicadas singing in autumn and, most of all, I love the vibrant autumn leaves in November and December. While I enjoy life in Japan very much, there are some activities that I miss doing back in Adelaide that are much harder or impossible to do here in Japan.

One of the activities that I miss the most is going down to the beach on a hot summer’s night with my family to eat fish and chips while watching the sunset. Adelaide is lucky enough to be a place where the sun sets over the ocean. This means that, when conditions are right, you can see stunning sunsets reflected in the ocean. Such sunsets are utterly picturesque and very photo worthy. I love going swimming on hot evenings just before the sunsets, but even on nights when it is a little chilly or I can’t be bothered swimming, it is so nice to just take off my shoes and socks and walk in the shallow waters. It is so peaceful and relaxing. While it is possible to go to the beach in Japan, it is not the same. Beaches are far from the city, and very crowded in the summer months. In Adelaide, even on hot nights when many people go to the beach, beaches rarely get as crowded as they do in Japan. Perhaps the only exception to this is on New Year’s Eve, when many people go to the city or beach to party the night away. While some Japanese beaches are very beautiful, one of the things that shocks me the most is the amount of litter left on the beach. In general, Japan has very little litter compared to many other counties. However, Japanese beaches are often covered in litter! I think this is such a pity and I hope in the future attitudes towards litter at the beach will change. In Adelaide, while there is probably more litter than Japan overall, there is significantly less litter at the beach. The sand is white and soft and it feels wonderful to kick off your flip flops and run along the sand. I really miss the beaches in Adelaide.

Belinda

Vocabulary

bustling (adj.) - (about a place) full of activity
picturesque (adj.) - something scenic and beautiful.
can’t be bothered (phr.) - be unwilling to make the effort needed to do something.
party the night away (idiom) - party until the end of the night.
litter (noun) - rubbish such as paper, cans, and bottles left lying in an open or public place