A Tourist-Free Secret Kokomo Near Tokyo

A Tourist-Free Secret Kokomo Near Tokyo

Hi everyone. We’re here at Shimoda Prince [Music] Hotel. I want to take you to Bermuda. Mama [Music] to make that [Music] monster perfectity. [Music]

We live in Tokyo and consider the beaches at Shimoda to be our Kokomo because while there are beaches closer to Tokyo with ugly brown sand, only Shimoda a little farther away has beautiful beaches with white sand.

So why call it a secret?

For one, look how crowded it isn’t—–including no crowds of tourists.

And for two—–legend has it that American commodore Matthew C. Perry “discovered” Shimoda in 1853. But did you know it was American corporate expats and GIs who re-discovered Shimoda in the 1960s and early 1970s and named one particular beach in Shimoda “Secret Beach” because it was a secret all the Japanese living in Tokyo who only went to the brown sand beaches didn’t know?

Now add the fact that the Shimoda Prince Hotel first opened in 1973 to this story and if you’re an American, don’t you proudly start chanting: “USA, USA, USA”?

(Original audio: “Kokomo” by The Beach Boys from 1988)

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