Our Family Day at Funabashi Seaside Park - Tokyo Bay

Daisy playing with her ball at the beach

Near our home (less than 5 minutes in the car) is Funabashi Seaside Park, on the edge of Tokyo Bay. There is a grassy park, a community pool (that is opened only certain times of the year), tennis courts and some kiosk type stalls selling food/snacks and drinks as well as some toys and equipment for water and beach use. There are restrooms and fresh water showers/faucets that I sure enjoy rinsing off in before heading back to the car. There is adequate parking facilities (with a huge overflow parking lot just one block away) which costs a flat rate of ¥500. Very organized and well kept even though some of the buildings show their age.

Funabashi Seaside Park is basically a stretch of natural tidal shore that is very popular for annual clam-digging. The park authorities truck in roughly ten tons of clams, put them onto trawlers and then deposit them over the flats at high tide. When clam season opens, people show up (on some days in GREAT numbers) and after paying a small fee (a few hundred yen) they get a bucket, a shovel and an assigned a section of the beach to go dig their clams. It's great family fun. Many people also enjoy photography and birdwatching here. We saw many little hermit crabs and small fishes.

If you do wade out into the bay, take care because it is a haven for stingrays. There are signs that warn of their presence and it is not a joke. If you walk out onto the jetty walkway to the far left of the beach, you can look over the railings into the water and see them swimming around, in quite shallow water even. Some of them are pretty big!

Today we decided to have a family picnic with mom and enjoy the fresh air together. It was a beee-uuu-ti-ful day so we loaded up the car and drove down to the beach. It was Daisy's first time to the beach as an 'adult'. We took her to Makuhari Beach 2 times when she was a puppy and she wanted nothing to do with the water. She is also a little 'prissy' on her walks when it has rained, she avoids puddles and mud. So today I was shocked when she ran and jumped in the shore and wet sand and even the water! She had a blast!! It was so cute and fun to watch.

Here are some pics and then at the bottom, 3 videos of Daisy being a beach doggie!

A happy mouth full of sand after retrieving her ball several times

Me and mom and Daisy at our picnic site

Mom (in the middle of the pic) walking out in the tidelands

Ken, mom and Daisy...Queen Daisy gets the chair

What a nice day with family!

Another view of our picnic site, thanks to Ken for working so hard to get the umbrella up in the hard shoreline.