Ha ha! I collected a whole summer's worth of sun rays that day - the lower calves of my lily-white legs turned red and started peeling.

Going to the beach is largely a thing of the summer in Japan, and only for a fairly limited window of time... the commonly cited reason for not swimming is jellyfish. Also, a lot of women don't want to expose their skin to the sun, and quite a lot of beaches have "no swimming" rules which are largely obeyed. Actually, there were a lot of people enjoying themselves just up the beach from where we were.
!BBH